Catching Up!

This week has been quite busy here in Aix, and we have quite a lot going on to catch you up on! Our youth spent the last week at an adventure camp in the Ardeche region, and from what I hear, it was fantastic. One of the French kids I spoke with today said it was so good, he was not ready to come home. It was his first experience at a camp like that, and he LOVED it! Way to go Pat, Lindsey, Kerri, Lauren, Adam and Tasha!!!!! I can't wait to hear all the stories from the week :) So...while that group was at camp, the rest of us were busy out at the Anderson's property preparing for Kid's Camp, which is next week. We cleared brush, made a facade for a western town, painted, picked rock, hung signs and built a tile/concrete pool deck. We have an awesome team here from Vanguard (a college in California), and they are AMAZING. The creativity and energy they bring is just phenomenal. I have a few pictures, but next week when everything is up, I'll post better ones.

In the midst of all this camp stuff, we have Serve the City, which is an opportunity for volunteers to serve the city of Aix in a variety of ways. The girls and I just got home from an old house that will become a youth center here in town. It is quite run down, and we spent hours hauling debris and scraping walls. The team tomorrow will rip out carpet and paint. Other teams around town are clearing out storage rooms at the French Church's office to begin preparing for a renovation project, and another group of 24 (almost all the kids and leaders from Youth Camp!)is at a place called Emmaus, which is a thrift shop that benefits the homeless. It is so exciting to be able to serve in such practical ways, and something we will be doing a lot more of in the future, I think. (snaps to Julie and Kerri for all their hard work on this :) )
So that gives you a glimpse of what we've been up to lately. We did get the news this week from our downstairs neighbor that our shower has been leaking (it did this in October, too, and was fixed improperly!) and now the wall in Lexi's room is rotting. We pulled all her furniture away from the wall, and it is awful-the wallpaper is peeling off, and the wall is mushy. Our estate agent, Tom, has already had a contractor here, though, and we are hoping it will be fixed before our guests arrive in August. These things here can take months, so I'm not holding my breath.

Well, I have 6 more songs to type into PowerPoint for camp on Monday, so I have to get started-it could take me days to finish!