This week has been a blast for me! Sixteen adorable kids stormed the house this week for overnight camp. Forget language immersion. Counseling at a kid’s camp in a foreign country is language submersion! I’m so thankful God guided me to learn Italian while I was at the University of Oregon 2 years ago. I could keep up with the kids (barely). :)

16 kids: 14 are girls, 2 are boys; age range 3-14; 5 speak English, but 11 only speak Italian; 12 came from the Christian Evangelical church in Trento (1 hr away), and 4 belong to the Dillis family (my hosts).

We learned new songs. We had devotionals and discussions about Jesus’ guidance for our lives. We had a bonfire with American marshmallows (a mystery to most of the kids). And we had a day-long hike up Monte Stivo, a nearby mountain, seeing hundreds of local wildflowers, some trailside parable lessons, a breath-taking panorama, and 1 excellent pep talk about how our lives are like a mountain hike—there will be difficulties when you want to turn around, but you have to push through if you want to get to the top, where you will see that it was worth it!

It was a pleasure to contribute to these kids’ lives this week, and I’ll get to see them every Sunday at church in Trento. :)