The First Camp of Spring

Here's a shot of everyone as they were arriving for the weekend.

Matthew, 4 of my nephews and 3 of the boys from the mountain standing on top of  "All Aboard."
They helped take all the teams through the Obstacle Course on Friday.

Welcoming all the teams and explaining the object of each obstacle.

Here's one of the teams going through 'The Trust Fall."  

One of the first teams to attempt "Born again." The bottom of the
 tire is 6' off the ground. So it's a lot harder than it looks. 

River Tubes are one of the new additions to the
camp this year. The kids loved them!

Students on the obstacle called "Islands." 

After using a couple different strategies, this team finally conquered the obstacle called "Giant Finger." 

The new zip line takes teams over the "Snake Pit" to the end of the course.

Walking on the "High Wire" as the rest of the team watches.

Trying to maneuver around the tree that's in the middle of the obstacle called "The Low V."

The tower that stands high above the rest of the course is home to the

"Climbing Wall" and the "Rope Wall." 

On the "Jungle Gym" the smallest person on the team must travel along upside-down 11' up in the air. 

2 of my nephews (Eli and Ike) along with Matthew.

One of the last teams competing by trying to stay on "All Aboard" for 30 seconds

The Giant Zip Line is one of the highlights of the camp, for sure.

Here are some of the students that were with us for this camp right before they left.
It's always a little difficult saying, "goodbye."

This past weekend we had our first camp of the Spring. As all of you are going into the Fall in the US, we’re coming out of our Winter here in Brazil. Although we held a couple of camps over the Winter months, this Spring and Summer are going to be very busy with numerous camps (both church groups and FREE camps for orphanages and favela kids). With the addition of Desafio de Selva (The Jungle Challenge- obstacle course), new tubes for the lake, the enlarging of the soccer field, as well as other things that we have planned- this should be a great year for us here at the camp. 

This past weekend we hosted a group from Piraquara, Brazil for 3 days. This was the first group to be able to go through the entire obstacle course and tryout our new river tubes. Everyone was ministered to in the services, everyone had a great time and the weather was perfect all weekend. 

I won’t ramble on much about it today (we’re very tired because of the long weekend and all the prep leading up to the camp) but I don’t want to miss this opportunity to thank all of you who support us financially and prayerfully. We literally couldn’t do this without you guys. It seems that we’re always under an intense amount of pressure just trying to live here and it gets tiring. But when we’re able to see students come and experience Jesus, and to know that if we weren’t here, it wouldn’t be happening on the mountain at all... it’s humbling. And it makes all the difficulties seem more do-able and worth the sacrifice. And we want you to know that the sacrifice that all of you make (our supporters) that allow us to be here, is definitely making a difference in the lives of children and teenagers who desperately deserve the chance to meet Jesus. And because of all of us together- they’re doing just that: )

Love ya,
Jim and MJ