A recent missions trip to Kenya in east Africa provided seven camp staff members from WorldSong Missions Place with experiences to share with hundreds of Girls in Action, Children in Action members and Acteens this summer.
WorldSong summer camps director Regina Howell conducted a week-long camp for orphans at Nyeri Baptist High School in Kenya, along with fellow summer staff members Kristi Howard, Kelli Howard, Faith Caddis, Suzanne Williamson, Amy Giles and Michele Johnson. Howell said half of the $4,690.75 offering collected at Alabama Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) summer 1999 camps at WorldSong helped fund craft supplies. Bible study supplies and travel insurance for the missions trip.
“Because they live at a Christian orphanage, a lot of the children are already believers,” Howell said. “However, because there aren’t many adults where they live, (Southern Baptist missionary) Jill Branyon asked that our chief purpose in going not to be to share the gospel as much as to just ‘love on’ the kids.”
Howell said the trip gave her a new outlook on building relationships with WorldSong’s summer campers.
“Having 160 campers each week of summer camp at WorldSong, we have to have some structure and stay on schedule, but what should be our highest priority is the campers and not the programming,” said Howell, whose team worked with only 50 campers while in Kenya. “Our missions trip was a rare opportunity for me to pour myself into the campers. I was amazed that people in Africa are so relationship-oriented, not program-oriented like so many people in the United States.”
Howard said nonverbal affection helped overcome language barriers.
“One 8-year-old boy, Musa, didn’t speak very much English, but he and I spent a lot of time chasing and tickling each other,” she said. “He sat in my lap a lot.”
Elizabeth, an older camper in Kenya, “stayed to herself a lot of the time but then joined a group of us walking to town for some sodas and initiated holding my hand,” Howard said. “It meant a lot that she sought out someone in our group.”
Teachers and students at Green Valley Elementary School in Hoover, where Howard is a physical education teacher, gave her a sendoff in December for the Africa trip. They provided several children’s books, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, hairbrushes and other hygiene items for the orphanage.
Howard’s sister, Kellie, said her second-graders at Kitty Stone Elementary School in Jacksonville chose to not exchange Christmas gifts, bringing presents for the orphans instead.
Daily activities during the camp in Kenya focused on themes such as “God’s Promises,” “Jesus As My Friend,” “God As Good Father,” “The Life of Jesus and Salvation,” and “God’s Unconditional Love.” Campers had trouble understanding the concept of bases in kickball but enjoyed singing songs with the WorldSong team, Howard said.
“The girls taught us a couple of Swahili songs and some great hand-clapping activities we’ll use during summer camps at WorldSong this year,” she said. “We taught the girls and boys many of the songs we have used in past summers at WorldSong, including ‘Rise and Shine, and Give God the Glory.’ ‘If You Love Jesus,’ ‘My God Is So Big,’ and a form of ‘Jesus Loves Me’ with hand motions, and they loved them.
A variety of traditional African items purchased on the missions trip will be available in WorldSong’s gift shop during summer camps. (WMU)
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