Recap of BAFA week

Well it's been a crazy week. Since I'm tired and still have to serve dinner tonight I figure a short week summary should do for ya'll. Basically this weekend was great as there were 40 extra teenagers our age hanging out here. They also had to be super entertaining as they are preparing to teach camps for little kids. BAFA is a week training camp for future french counselors. Thus they spend the week learning and also putting on plays, playing games, and just dressing up crazy! Each meal was interupted by one of the 6 groups dressed in various costumes and with different dinner theater. Life has been anything but boring lately. I went to the store today with a few equipier and Justin from DEFI and we came back to find all the students of BAFA sitting in a big circle dressed in costumes with face paint surrounding a guy with a huge fake beard and wig stirring a cauldren...AND they were chanting!

Besides the entertainments BAFA has brought us we've been getting into a schedrule we're calling the chalet ladies. Basically we've been taking walks in the alps each afternoon, spending some time working out together, and planning a bible study. We've also decided in the coming week to make some colorful posters to adorn our rooms as we've been inspired by the blessing posters we made with DEFI this week. Anyways all that to say that this week I took a walk with Doris into the mtns. We told the guys we would be fine alone...although they doubted this completly :) haha well it turns out they were correct. Doris and I ended up in the most beautiful area. A little stone bridge with ivy hanging off it overlooking a waterfall and its really close to camp, the issue of course was that we decided to try and continue on the path that ran alongside the river and ended up climbing the side of the mtn with no path, thorns, and mud. It ended with us both tumbling down almost into the river....oops! By this time it was almost completly dark and we luckily ended up finding our way back to camp, but there was a moment or two I think we both doubted our ability to retrace our steps.

Halloween in France was also pretty neat. DEFI decided we all had to dress up for the day so we pulled out our costumes from the camps closet and had everything from a detective to a hippie. I was a dutch maid and Kristin was a milking maid (the equipier decided to go with the theme of serventhood). In the evening we even had a bunch of cute little kids come to the door and ask for candy during dinner service. So Mike and I put out gouter snacks for them! What's better than getting a loaf of bread for halloween anyways. :)

Hmmmm....trying to see if I've forgotten anything else of any consequence. Tons of late nights with DEFI this week. We've been watching a series of Brittish shows, playing some MAFIA, and trying to get through this last week before their pause. Today is the last day before their week long break. This means that the next week will be a ton more relaxed. Sure there's still work around here, but if they are planning an activity we are allowed to plan our days around theirs. We also dont have to have meals served as we will all take turns cooking and eat together in the salle d'equipier. Only 4 or 5 of the students are actually going to be here as the others will be touring around Europe during their time off. That's fine with me. I'm looking forward to hanging with Justin, Joelle, Noelle, and Lisa.

Ahhh I've thought of something else fun we did this week. There were a lot of good times this week so they have a tendency to blend together, especially when I'm tired and really not concentrating all that well due to silly people distracting me ;)

We went to a party at Sam's. He's turning 18 really soon and so he has everyone to his guest house for the night. We couldnt stay the whole time due to petite deg in the morning, but we went for the evening...okay until the morning, but we didnt sleep there! Mike, Kristin, and I went over having no idea what to expect. Turns out it was a bunch of our friends including some from camp STEVE and TED. It was neat to see them again and also neat to see our church friends. Sam has been really good about introducing us to a group of really strong christians from the area...we love them, they make us laugh! So it was basically a dance party complete with lights and a DJ. The best part is it was some of the same dance music from home, just add french kids that are incredible dancers (americans u have no idea how good they are...take any idea you have and multiply it by 10 and u get them dancing). Basically they taught us some stuff and we had such a great night complete with the YMCA and even a pudding fight! Like I said, these kids are crazy cool.

Last but definitly not least we had some missionaries from Hong Kong here for the end of the week. There were 6 of them plus a little baby girl Ava. They were all super nice and very excited about what's happening in Asia in 2008. They are encouraging us to all look into missions in Asia. Sadly I don't think that's exactly where I feel my heart is called. BIOLA is defnitly next in my order of adventures. Still it was really neat to hear about their adventures and get to talk to them a bit about their future plans during this coming year.

Alas I'm having a super hard time concentrating...due to some wonderful people...so im going to go play MAFIA and do dinner service.