Today was the last day of Tapolca English Camp 2016.  We couldn’t have asked for a better ending!  Our day with the campers started out with a spontaneous dance to Cotton Eye Joe, which got everyone smiling right away.  Our final English lessons went well, the second week has been going better than the first, as the kids are more comfortable with us now.  It has been really cool to see the kids getting more excited and willing to participate and use their English.

Chapel was really good, as always!  Josh gave a message basically telling the kids that they have two possible responses to all the Gospel messages they have been hearing this week; either believe the message, and proclaim that it is true, or reject the message.  It was very clear, and it seemed like all the kids paid good attention.  In small groups after chapel, one of the advanced students that we have been meeting with, and praying for, told his small group that he had become a Christian.  I didn’t know this until after lunch, when he came up and told me himself!  This has been the best part of camp for me so far!  We are so excited for him, and this has been such a huge answer to prayer!

The next thing on our agenda was a walk to the woods, where leaders got to pretend to be animals, and the students had to come and catch us.  It was basically a scavenger hunt.  This is one of my favorite games we play at camp.  We played for about an hour, headed back for water, and then got to have our goodbye ceremony.

For the ceremony, each class got to came up on stage separately, and they got a bookmark and either a Bible (If it was their first time at camp), or another Christian book (if they had already received a Bible at another camp).  We took a big camp picture after the ceremony, and then headed outside to say some classic “Hungarian goodbyes”.  We had about 45 minutes to say goodbye to all the campers, so we got to say goodbye to each one multiple times.  It was very hard, but you can make sure you get to say goodbye to everyone if you do it that way.

After the campers left, we thanked God for the time He has given us here, and for all the students we got to share the Gospel with.  We are so happy for the time we got to spend here in Hungary, and for all the opportunities we had to share the Gospel both with our words, and with our actions.

Please pray that we would be able to keep in contact with the students as we come home, and that this experience they had at camp would not be just a two-week moment in their life where they heard about the Gospel, but that they would continue to investigate Christianity, read their Bibles, and ask us questions.  Pray that many of them would be saved!  Thank you, and goodnight from Tapolca!