Ninja vs Penguin

Penguin August 4th, 2008

I woke up a little late and had to pack for the Mountain Camp. I rinsed off and went down for breakfast. Zuma had prepared a rice porridge. Even though I wanted to eat it, I couldn’t finish it all. I managed to dump some back before I started eating.

Marcia showed up around 8:30. She had a slight fever yesterday, but she was better after sleeping and drinking a lot of water.

It’s hard to describe Marcia and I’s relationship at this stage. Sometimes I think it’s just a working relationship. Other times, I feel like we’re good friends.

We were supposed to leave around 9:30, but we didn’t actually get going until 9:45. On the way, we stopped to get chips and soda. I tried some of the local flavors, and it’s definitely different. They have this grass that they flavor a lot of their soups with. They also had shishkabob and pizza. Aside from the grass flavored one, none of them really tasted like what they were supposed to.

On the way to the camp, we listened to my iPod.

We got to the gates of the camp and both Marcia and Kostya left to get the key to unlock it. In the meantime, I put on some Muse and took some b-roll shots of the mountains and the local area.

At the camp, Kostya helped unload some of my stuff. But there was some raw chicken chillin in the trunk. After he grabbed the chicken, he grabbed the handle of my bag. I gingerly moved my stuff to our room and promptly went searching for some hand sanitizer. No one had any, but I managed to find some baby wipes. Hopefully, it was just as good.

I grabbed my camera and met up with the rest of the team. We spent some time just catching each other up about what’s been going on. I told them the stories about Larisa and the things I’ve seen.

Apparently, I had just missed them slaughter and skin a lamb. That would’ve been great to get on camera.

While they were doing Bible time, I went exploring. I found a ridge that overlooked the river and took some shots of it. After finding this story about the village with water, I’ve been searching for anything that has to do with water for b-roll.

For lunch, we had this potato tomato soup. Not bad, but nothing special.

After lunch, Marcia and I did a little bit of translation and then I gave her the rest of the day off because it was her birthday.

A lot of people took a nap. Abel took Marcia, Nadia, Nastya, and I down to the river where I got a lot more footage.

We got back and Esther was making paper flowers so we offered to help. Then Abel got the idea to make some bouquets for the two birthday girls. We spent the next two hours folding 14 flowers for the two girls.

For dinner, we had chicken leg over mashed potato. The chicken was really good. Moist and tasty.

After dinner, they had a worship time. The team performed Prodigal Son. Then they sang songs. During the last song, they had an altar call and a bunch of kids came forward.

There’s no doubt in my mind that some of these kids will become great Christians. But I thought back to the parable of the seed. A lot of the seed took, but for various reasons, didn’t last. I wonder how many of these kids will last.

They sent the kids to bed and we prepared for Marcia’s party. As we waited, we talked about where we were going to go tomorrow. We had the choice of the mountain, with some rock scrambling, or the waterfall.

Esther wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but out of nowhere, Charles told her that she wasn’t allowed to go the mountain because he didn’t think she was capable of it. She was sitting behind me, so I didn’t know if she was offended, but I was. Esther’s an adult and she’s allowed to make her own decisions, so I stepped up for her. After a brief argument, she walked off. Charles and I dropped it and I went looking for Esther to talk to her about it.

I spent some time counciling Esther as Marcia’s party started. She really wanted me to help her get the party started, but I felt like my responsibility was to Esther. I spent some more time talking to her and then we joined Marcia’s party.

The first game we played, she would hold up a sign behind people and others would ask them questions and they would just guess answers. None of us really got it.

The next game was essentially dare. Everyone handed in a personal object. Then someone would sit up front. One of the objects would be help up and the person would say what they should do. At first, it was all innocent. And then Preston said that someone get a waterballoon and pop it on someone. Nadia went to get the balloon and popped it on me, soaking me. When it was my turn, I turned up the heat and said the person had to bring Nadia to step in some cow poop. Vicki was more than happy to find a nice big fresh pile of cow pie for her. The rest of the game was pretty tame.

We didn’t know what else to do, so, as a joke, we suggested spin the bottle. We were surprised that the girls were keen on it. In an effort to keep it safe, we restricted it to cheek and hands. We got through 3 rounds when Daniel’s wife came over and told us that we should probably stop. We agreed and just left it at that.

We were still in a circle, so Bo suggested we play “Never have I ever”. Not a really fare game for me, considering I was about 10 years older than almost everyone. I got hit by every person. We played two rounds, until around midnight. It was late, so we stopped.

I got my laptop to do some logging, but I ended up talking to Esther some more. Charles had apologized to her, but she was still a little upset. We talked about her feelings, about some of her struggles.

Charles had just finished talking to some of the guys and Bo was really upset. He had told them that he was praying and God told him that he should be with the kids and not go up the mountain. The guys felt that he was kind of guilt tripping them to going to the waterfall instead.

We kept talking about various things. About God, about the team, about Charles, until the lights went out at 1. We had the rare opportunity to see some stars. There weren’t nearly as many as I hoped or expected, but it was a nice change from the sparseness of Jersey. After a few minutes, we gathered to pray. I’m not positive, but I think it was only the second time that we’ve prayed as a team.

All day, I had been feeling really lonely. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because no one really understood what I was doing. Or maybe the 5 days without any meaningful social contact took it’s toll on me. In either case, I tried to deal with it, but it was close to 2, so I turned in.

As I was going to bed, I saw Marcia and Nastya sitting in a chair. I talked to them briefly before they left for bed. I sat around a little bit, prayed, and went to bed myself.

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Tags: Kyrgyzstan, Missions, Mountain camp, Trips

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