Two weeks in Macedonia

Sarah Harris has spent the past few summers helping at 5-Day Clubs® and Camps in the Mourne area. This summer she decided to do something different and headed off to Macedonia to help in camps there. Here what she thought of all:

On Monday 19th June, Rachel Brown, Laura Jayne Byers and I headed off to Macedonia for two weeks of camps with Pavle and Susanna Kostadinov, the CEF Macedonian workers. After an initial 5 days spent acclimatising in Greece we met up with Pavle and his son David on Saturday. We then drove up from Greece into Skopje, the Macedonian capital, to spend the weekend getting to know Pavle, Susanna, David and their daughter Anna.

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday we also had the chance to meet Julie and Amy, two American girls who were also over helping at the camps. On Sunday we went to Pavle’s church and enjoyed a special time of fellowship with the congregation. The rest of the day was spent getting the necessary equipment and supplies ready for camp. We also had our jobs allocated to us for the next two weeks.

Monday 26th June saw the start of Teen Camp. The day began very early to go meet the teens and get the bus which would take us to the camp centre at Pretor. When we arrived in Pretor we were certainly surprised – the camp centre definitely wasn’t Seaview! We were allocated our accommodation for the camp, sorted out luggage and started to get to know the teenagers.

Camp programme in Macedonia was a little different to anything we had all experienced at home but we quickly adapted. The morning began with a leaders’ meeting at 7.30am, then the campers got up and we went to breakfast. Immediately after breakfast we separated into groups for Quiet Time. We each had the opportunity to lead one of these groups with help from some of the teens who translated for us. We then had a time of praise and teaching together from God’s Word before we headed off to the beach for a morning’s sunbathing. After lunch we did various craft and team activities and even a few sports before heading back down to the beach again. In the evening we enjoyed a time of worship before we “entertained” them all with various games and an Irish social on the last two nights of camp.

During the course of the camps we had the privilege of meeting David Oram, a missionary who spent many years in Nigeria. Each night he spoke to the teens, sharing with them stories from his time as a missionary and with a translator each of us gave a word of testimony. The day was rounded off with another leaders’ meeting to talk and pray about the day which had just ended. The Teen Camp ended on the Sunday morning and as they were all returning home again we spent the night at the camp centre catching up on some much needed sleep.

After the teens had left, we noticed for the first time since we arrived at camp that the skies were getting very dark, and so began 2 days of rain! Only the second such time that this had happened at camp – trust the Northern Irish!!

Lunch time on Monday saw the arrival of 72 children and 4 new leaders to join the team including our very own Ruth Bleeks. The camp programme ran the same as the teenage camp however the first few days were very difficult with torrential rain and no facilities to entertain the children. We managed to organise a day trip to the local chocolate factory keeping us out of the rain and resulting in a lot of free chocolate. We were surprised by how many of the children could speak English. We couldn’t take part in the Quiet Time groups but we could still sit and observe the children and how much they responded to God’s Word. We all enjoyed the week organising games and playing with the children, and we even enjoyed a joint birthday party for Amy and Anna!

Children’s camp ended on Saturday and we headed back to Skopje to recover after two hectic but amazing weeks. Our final weekend in Macedonia was spent sightseeing and meeting up with some of the teens from camp before we had to go home.

Our trip to Macedonia was fantastic. It’s hard to describe how much we all enjoyed it! We were blessed and challenged at both camps and saw God working in amazing ways. Two teenagers were saved at Teen Camp and several children were counselled for assurance of salvation. I know that all the girls enjoyed the fellowship with each other and the Macedonian leaders. Finally, the only thing left to say is roll on June 2007!