What an incredible week it's been ... actually, a little over a week - since Friday before last, when I drove to Lynchburg (well, NEAR Lynchburg), picked them up and drove back here. It is a group of youth who come from ... at least 3 churches, 3 different cities, and a Pastor, his wife, and their son (from yet ANOTHER town and church) (the youth come from Rome, Florence, and Milan).
They had spent the week that had just ended participating in family mission week at Eagle Eyrie, and had spent their time doing vacation bible schools, some home repairs and painting, and meeting and getting to know a slew of folks who went to the camp from all over virginia. The pastor is originally from Honduras, so when he first started working out the plans to come to Virginia, he asked about plugging into a Hispanic Ministry somewhere around the state . Their contact person and I served as journeymen together at the same time back in the mid-eighties, so he connected US, and it FINALLY happened ... they GOT here!
So it's been an interesting week and a half. right off the bat, the kids are ... kids. teenagers are not THAT different, at least from what i can tell between here and Italy. They like to joke and laugh and play, they still have a lot of the energy that children have, but they are also beginning to deal with issues that need to be considered as adults ... and they are straddling both worlds.
Jaime, the pastor, and his wife Barbara both speak spanish, as does their son, a couple of the kids speak enough english to be understood, and more of them understand enough spanish ... i think we ended up calling what we've been communicating in Itanglish ... or something like that ... no ... spangliano ... whatever ... whatever it IS, it's been infused with grace.
Last week we played. went to the river to swim -- if only part of us, if only for an hour or so. The week was partially dictated by a homegoing in our congregation and the ensuing visitation and funeral. We DID get to take them into Richmond to tour the VBMB, BTSR, and to do a little bit of shopping, and they DID get to go to Sandbridge, near Virginia Beach, on Friday, and I took them to DC to see some of the sights in the course of a few hours ... got an interesting lesson in what it is that the rest of the world (or at least these Italians) thought was worth seeing. Not a surprising one, just a sobering one. I realized how Americanized I've become.
This past Sunday, Jaime preached in Spanish and I translated into English. As daddy would say after a visiting mission team came through Santiago or somewhere in Chile and he served as interpreter, it was one of the best sermons I've preached. :-)
Yesterday afternoon, we gathered at the river and baptized three new members of our congregation -- at the conclusion of which, the Italian group broke into a song that both praised God for the gift of life, and asked for continued guidance ... (if i remember correctly ... that may be changed here in a bit) ...
Today we started the work part of their stay with us -- sports camps -- preschoolers in the mornings, and elementary aged kids through completed 6th grade in the afternoons. It started out a little awkward, with some issues with the language barrier, exacerbated by the fact that the OTHER youth group -- from our former church in Virginia Beach -- Thalia Lynn Baptist -- arrived at 8:15 to begin registration for the camps at 9:15. In two locations. Working with people they'd never met before. Who didn't speak the same language...
Well, SORTA didn't speak the same language.
You see, yeah, the words that came out of their mouths didn't sound very much alike, but the language that was coming from their hearts (mostly) was the same -- the language of love, and caring, and blessing. The language of fun, and laughter, and singing (I wish you could have heard the singing -- the combined, overlapped, intertwined and interwoven singing of the Psalm 100 praise chorus in Italian and in English.
So we get to bear witness to the Grace of God in our lives in yet another way -- through watching how these kids meet, work together, and get to know each other.
It's been amazing to watch -- and it's only the first day.
