We started a Hopetown Kids Camp tonight in the Blair Park Apartments and we had about 25 kids from the neighborhood join about 20 kids from our church in a grassy area of the apartment complex :)  It is an Olympic theme....and there were a couple powerful moments in the middle of all of the lessons and games.  First, we were talking about sin and how it separates us from God and the leader for this talk was asking the kids what were some things they could think of that would be sins.  One little boy raised his hand and said, "All the shooting!" And it was just like God shined a light into my questions to Him about how I am supposed to process all the tragedy or how I am supposed to respond with this child's answer....and I realized I am doing something about it by loving these kids and teaching them.  If these 45 kids will learn to love because Christ first loved them.....we have done something positive.

This little goose enjoyed trying to melt the ice cube to get to the penny inside....our lesson was on perseverance and we learned about the Olympian, Derek Redmond...and the perseverance of Noah in the face of many obstacles.

One of the games we played was a relay which required them to make it to the other side with this ball in between them.  Some of them discovered that it was easier to get to the other side by holding hands or hugging each other....it is pretty sweet sometimes how quickly kids figure out things that it takes adults a really long time to discover.  Karly and Kayla just met tonight, but were acting like they had known each other forever.