Suddenly, my ten weeks at Camp des Cimes has been reduced to three days. Whoa. Hard to believe. Since my last blog (which was forever ago, sorry), Adult Camp has ended, and a lot of the summer staff that was here headed back to the States. The first week of August was a week off for the camp, and I had the opportunity to go to Paris for a few days with some friends from here. Once I got back, I was able to climb a peak in the Alps, complete with glacier travel! All in all, it was a relaxing week, despite how busy I was.
On the 7th, Family Camp officially started. This is the first camp of the summer that isn't an "English" camp, so all the announcements, messages, etc. are in French, and not translated. Because of that, and my complete lack of any French skills whatsoever, I'm back on service team. I spend a good portion of the day doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, setting up and tearing down for meals, etc. It's actually kind of nice to be behind the scenes for awhile, after the craziness that was July. I haven't had the opportunity to talk to the familes much, what with the language barrier, but apparently some of them were campers here around ten years ago, and now they're bringing their families back because they want them to have the Christian influence in their lives as well. It's cool to see.
There's a decent amount of down time on service team, so I've been able to read quite a bit. Last week I read The Question of God, which compares and contrasts the philosophical viewpoints of Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis. If you haven't read it, you should. It's a fantastic book!
After nearly ten weeks here at camp, I'm starting to get pretty drained, and the past week or so, I've been ready to go home. It's tough, because I know I need to focus on finishing my time here well, and enjoy the experience while I can! I would love to come back here in the future, but nothing in life is ever guaranteed, so who knows if that will happen or not? I'll try to write more about that once I'm back in the States, but this will be my last update until then. I can't thank all of you enough for your support and prayers! They're a huge encouragement. Starting on Monday, I'll be doing a few weeks of traveling on my own, and I fly back to Colorado on September 7th. Any prayers for my travels would be greatly appreciated as well!
Godspeed,
Ryan
