Well these past two days have been stressful for me. Imagine going to a place where many people know each other and are already friends; I place where they all speak a language that you do not. Its tough to break in. Many speak a little english, and so if you ask them a question, they can, for the most part, answer it, but then, they usually got right back to talking with their friends that speak Latvian.
This is how its been for me the whole camp so far. I am being a co-leader of a cabin group with Diks (if you remember, he came to First Baptist to speak when Dustin came over last). Diks speaks english well, and he said that he would translate for me on important things, but I have felt so useless so far. During the meeting times, I have thankfully been sitting next to someone who has translated the message for me, but during small groups, even though he started out translating, Diks has been lax about it. SO, because I do not know what my small group (Cabin) is talking about, I cannot offer my input and therefore, have no real way of connecting with the students. It has been tough. The only way that I can connect with them is to talk with them one on one when Diks is not there talking. I snuck a bit of english in there before our small group talk this morning while we were waiting for others to join us. There were a few boys waiting in the cabin with me and so I asked if what was translated to me was what we talked about- Temptation- and it was so I asked a few of them what things they had been tempted with, shared a bit about when I was younger and was tempted to cheat on a test or whatnot and if I did or not. That was a good time, but mostly I don't get opportunities, so, please pray for Kelli, Megan, and I that we would be able to have Latvian translated for us, and that we would be able to have input in our small group meeting times so we could connect with the students. Pray for strength for us PLEASE. It is tough and lonely being in a place like this.
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