Let me tell you a story...

I'm still playing catchup with old blog posts, so try to keep up as I switch from summer camp to current happenings to environmental trainings, etc.!  Today's story is about a special little camper named Tanya.

While at Camp Bereg, a summer camp for kids about 2 hours south of Odessa, there were numerous other camps going on at the same time as our English camp.  Also staying at the sanatorium (think old Soviet style dormitory) was a group of orphans who live in Chernigov during the year.  My clustermate Jamie lived in the city where Camp Bereg was and we would catch up on the phone throughout the summer, seeing what each other was up to (this was before I went down to Camp Bereg).  The English camp had 4 summer sessions, but the orphans were at the sanatorium all summer.  Jamie would often tell me that he played with the orphans which was a bit confusing because he was not in charge of them--they just flocked to him.  So, when I went down for my week at Camp Bereg, I finally got to meet some of these orphans who he's hung out with all summer.  They are precious and simply want to be loved.  That's it.

That is Jamie (clustermate) who got to hang out with these sweet kids all summer.  Zhenya is the little boy in the green shirt and Valera is the boy in the middle.  From what I heard from the other camp counselors, the orphans are in charge of washing their own clothes at camp.  I think Valera is 11 years old and Zhenya is 7.  They wore those outfits the entire week that I was there.

Zhenya on Jamie's shoulders...too precious.

Valera playing on the beach

From what I could tell, the orphans could basically do whatever they wanted during the day at camp.   They went to the beach in the mornings with us, but after that, I would just see them sporadically throughout the day.  This is where Tanya comes into the picture.

Did you notice that the boys both have shaved heads?  Lice started going around in the orphans wing of the building.  Their solution?  Shave all of the kids heads who had lice because the lice can't stick to a buzz cut.  So, one day, Kym and I were trying to make friendship bracelets with some of the other camp counselors and kids during afternoon activities.  I was sitting on the couch with some kids when Tanya came into the room.  I believe she's 7 years old (but looks like a 5 year old because she's so tiny).  She was incredibly timid and started picking up the scraps of yarn that other kids had discarded.  One of the other camp counselors knew her and asked her if she wanted a bracelet.

Her face lit up.

I could see the excitement as she thought, "You mean I get to pick my own colors?"

It made me wonder when the last time she actually had a choice about something was.

She was so proud of the pink and yellow bracelet the other counselor made for her.  At that point, I had messed up on my bracelet but could fix it for Tanya's tiny wrist.  I asked her if she wanted it and her face lit up again. While I finished working on it, she came and sat next to me on the couch.  The next thing I knew, she was standing on the couch playing with my hair.

You see, little Tanya was one of the kids who had to have their head shaved because of lice.

She played with my hair for an hour and a half...braiding it, putting it in ponytails, putting it on her head like it was her hair.  One of the other camp counselors, Kristen, snagged this picture of her playing.

She was the reason I was at camp that week, and a confirmation why I'm here in Ukraine.  Thanks for that, God :)