The Good Part was that this allowed us to basically run a practice camp and perhaps a few mistakes were avoided in the adult camp. Also, the entire purpose of the camp was to be an English camp, so we were free from the distractions of having such things as the drum team.
The Bad Part was that there was very little rest and recovery time between the two camps. This translated into a lot of very tired people, and due to the very cold temperatures ( about 25 degrees F, or -5 degrees C, in an area where indoor heating is nearly unheard of ) a number of people got sick, and in general it was very difficult to keep the energy level up.
Because it was unknown how much English skills there would be among the adoleschents, and because by their nature the adolescents would find it difficult to sit still through an hour and a half workshop, certain workshops ( such as the Bible Study ) did not happen during the Adolescents English Camp. Instead, the workshops would focus on activities. Therefore, there was no Bible Study Workshop during the adolescents English camp.
As with the first English camp, there was a cooking workshop. However, this time there was an interesting addition: a machine for making home-made ice cream. Therefore, this workshop was extremely popular (even despite the cold temperatures outside, it was warm enough during the daylight hours that people still enjoyed the ice cream). Due to the need for help, I was assigned to help out with this workshop during the adolescents camp. Games was also popular during the adolescents workshop, and at least once I helped out with that workshop.
Other items where help is always needed is helping the campers get settled into the camp, find where everything is, show them to their cabins, and so forth.
The other problem is that if you are going to do a Bible study it helps a great deal if people have Bibles. If you are going to do a Bible study in English, it helps if those Bibles are in English. Alas, those resources were simply not available to us ( just like the first English camp ). Therefore, I prepared photocopy sheets of a scripture passage.
Unlike the first English camp, I prepared a passage of scripture in English on a photo copied sheet in three different English versions ( Good News, Revised Standard, and New International ), so that people could see how the wording and sentence structure was different between these different versions. Another item I decided to add was a list of basic Bible (and general book) vocabulary. Teaching vocabulary is a part of the workshops ( even the most basic workshop can teach new vocabulary to even those who may speak the language to an advanced degree, because vocabulary depends on exposure to the words ).
Therefore, there were to be several parts to this workshop:
God provided some interesting people during these workshops. Professora Adriana, a teacher of English who later came to work for the English school in Londrina, really got involved in the discussion one day, and told us of what God was doing in her life. It was an amazing story, and she had much to say about the passage of scripture I had chosen. After the workshop, she appologized for taking over the "lesson". I explained that was the nature of group discussion: sometimes someone has some very interesting and important things to say, and that person should be the one who talks.
The other Bible Study workshop was where I met Silvia Flores. She also has a wonderful testimony of how God worked in her life. Part of that testimony includes how she started to learn English. While working with a group of English speaking missionaires, she found it extremely easy to communicate with them, despite not having any formal training in the English language. She later determined that, due to the rapidity with which she learned the language, that God had granted her a special gift with the English language. That is how she became interested in English.
Once again, I must say, God is very good to us! He provided exactly who I needed in my workshop exactly when I needed them. Both of these women provided the motivation for discussion that I needed for the group discussion phase of the workshop to be a success. Praise the Lord!
For me, the lasting blessing from these workshops was the meeting of these two people with wonderful testimonies of how God is working in their lives.
