NYC

Tomorrow will be a week since arrival here at Camp of the Woods.
As I normally note on trips of any duration, the days go by quickly yet in retrospect, time moves at a slow pace. It's as if we have been here for a month. The amount of growth that has happened from day 1 until now is astounding and encourages me to think; what will August 13 feel like?
First off, I have traveled beyond feeling hazy and disconnected amongst the blur of students buzzing in and out of the introductory stage. I now recognize people and can actually remember some of their names! I thank God for answering my prayer, that a settling would come over all of us. I pray God would continue to foster relationships amongst our community.
Secondly, I thank God for giving me patience and intentional slowness while interacting with the international students. I can see they are becoming significantly more comfortable around me and the other employees. I pray now God would give me opportunities to question their beliefs and share mine.

Whenever work is over I have Polish and Ukrainian chatter going on in my head. If that is how I feel after spending 8 hours with them, I can't imagine what they feel like surrounded by a foreign language. My team consists of Radek and Paulina who are from Poland, and Olesia who is from the Ukraine. Olesia understands English very well and I enjoy talking to her. She kept saying "I very like this", or "I very want to do such-and-such." I explained to her that "really" would be a better fit for situations like that. She loved that I corrected her.
Radek explained to me today while we were mopping a porch that he likes talking to Americans better "face-to-face" because when other Polish people are around he gets stressed out because they speak English more fluently than he does. He also told me today that he has never had such a laborous job and he is thankful that this job is teaching him how to earn money. However, the only reason he is here is because it was his only opportunity to come to the U.S. He would rather not work, like everyone else I am sure.
Paulina is a beautiful girl who I can tell loves to have fun and be a girl. Consequently, she lags a bit with work but I can see she works hard when she needs to.
I wish I could have them all stay at my house and bring them to the city...