After doing some placement testing to see where their English was so I knew what level to put them in for their classes….I realized they spoke NO English. What I mean by NO is, I asked one student his name and he responded quickly with, “Novi Sad, Novi Sad”. I think he thought I asked where is he from. At that moment I knew this camp was going to be interesting. Gypsy students do not have to go to school if they do not want to, so most of our students did not go…even the 13 year old girls that came said, “we don’t go to school because we are Gypsy kids and we are not required to go to school.”
The first few days of camp the students were not very responsive and did their own thing. They sat in their little groups and seemed a bit bored at times. This camp had the same theme as our camps in Slovakia…THINK AGAIN, and we had all the activities to go along with the theme for the day. It is interesting to watch the Serbian culture, they are so different from any other culture around here. Even though there was a schedule for camp to follow each day…they kind of came at their own times. They did much better than last year but non-the-less they still function on what we call “Serbian time” (my fiance’ would do just great there…sorry honey, but it’s true.) By the third day of camp the students began to come together and no longer sat in their little groups. It was amazing. You could tell God was moving throughout the camp. This camp was definitely different from any camp I have done. You could see walls coming down and students beginning to open up. I think we just needed to find a way to reach this culture of kids on their level. Most of them were into hip-hop music and came from rough living. So we put on some music and did the typical “American wedding song”…the Cha-Cha slide but they LOVED it! I got my workout every night. We did it over and over…but it related to them and their world.
Around the middle of the week some students began asking questions about God and wanted to know more. By the end of the week we had 3 students accept Christ and others on the edge. PRAISE GOD!
Here are some pictures from camp:
Here is the story of Victoria and Emilia, two sisters who accepted Christ at camp:
Victoria and Emilia come from a broken home where their dad died a few years ago along with their cousin. (Not sure of the story but I think their dad was sick and their cousin, not so sure). They come from a rough part of Novi Sad where there is gangs and they fear to walk in the streets. They said that at any moment if someone wanted to kill you for no reason, they would. Victoria (16) lived with her grandmother and Emilia (the youngest of the two, 15) lived with their mom and brother. They were both heavily involved in drugs and drinking and also they were stealing things that they could take to a pawn shop and get money for so that their family would have clothes and food. (we probably should have been concerned for our things at camp…) They heard about English camp and figured why not. They both spoke great English but not because they learned it in school. It is because they have seen it on tv and from movies. (which is how most kids on this side of the world learn English on top of going to school) They decided they wanted to change the way they were living.
Here is something that Emilia said to me;
“Every time I walked into your room I saw your cell phone sitting on the bed and I wanted to steal it. I knew it was Satan telling me to do it but I did not. It was tempting because I know I could get good money for it and have food and clothes for my family.”
What a testimony! God did have big plans for this camp and I am thankful I was there to see it. God is moving in Serbia. Keep praying for a revival among the youth in Serbia, it is much needed.
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