Arts and Crafts Camp 2024

This was our 14th Arts and Crafts Camp for young girls from different children’s homes in South Korea. This year we had 17 girls attend from four different children’s homes. The vast majority of these girls had been left at the Baby Box as infants. From there they were sent to their respective children’s home where they have been growing up since they were babies.

We only had three girls returning this year and they were all from the same children’s home. The rest of the girls were all new and a bit nervous. Thankfully, for some of the girls they had heard from older girls from their children’s home how great the camp is and so they were excited to attend. For the other new girls, thanks to our camp director Jee and our wonderful volunteers, their fear went away quickly and they were all able to fully enjoy the camp.

We love to start each day by having the volunteers line up and welcome the girls in one by one. This is a great way to start the camp day!

Our volunteers were mostly from different churches in and around Seoul. But for the volunteer below she is one of our Oak Tree Project students who grew up in one of the children’s homes that some of these girls are from. Our Oak Tree Project student did a fantastic job serving as a volunteer.

After welcoming the girls in we started each morning with prayer.

The girls were each paired with the same adult volunteer for all three days. Many of our volunteers at this camp were foreigners who weren’t fully fluent in Korean, but they all were filled with God’s love and did a wonderful job serving the kids. It was a joy watching the girls open up and have fun with their paired volunteer.

The first craft the girls worked on was making a mailbox. These mailboxes were then set out all three days so that the girls and the volunteers could write letters to each other. The girls were so happy opening their mailboxes on the last day to find all the letters that had been written to them.

After each craft Jee would invite up kids and their volunteers to do “Show and Tell.” Years ago when we first started doing this all of the girls were too insecure to get up in front of everyone so only volunteers went up. But as the years went by the girls became more and more confident and began going up even on the first day to share in front of everyone.

Here one of our youngest girls was still a bit nervous to go up so her volunteer went instead and shared on her behalf. You can see how delighted the girl was as her volunteer showed off what she made and everyone responded with cheers.

For one of our crafts the girls used perler beads to make different patterns and then one of our volunteers ironed their pattern to make keychains. This young girl pictured below made the biggest perler bead pattern in the history of our camp. Props to her paired volunteer for helping her find so many yellow perler beads and put that huge Pooh bear together!

For another craft they made decorations (like Christmas decorations) and placed them into a jar.

Some of the other crafts included making a collage, making clay figurines, making yearbooks/photo albums and having everyone sign them (the kids love this and some now young adults share with us that they still have their yearbook from their last camp 10 years ago). We also did face painting and nail art on the last day. We ended up having a number of cute foxes and other animals running around that last day.

Along with the show and tell we would also have “Compliments Time” during the camp. During this time the volunteers will share compliments about the girls at their table. For kids growing up in the children’s homes, it is very rare for them to receive personal compliments. Many of them have never learned that type of language and don’t know how to compliment others. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because God first loved us.” We want to not just love the kids by complimenting them, we also want to teach them the language of love. When we first started doing this at the camps the girls would often be silent. They loved receiving affirmation, but they would usually wait until the last day to reciprocate and share a compliment back and when they did it was usually done quietly and only among those at their table. But this year was different.

On the second day, Jee asked any girls who would like to give compliments to come up to the stage. In all our past camps only one girl had the courage and strength to do that. But this year almost all the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade girls went up to the stage to share compliments about their volunteers and about the other girls. We were so proud of them! That the girls felt safe enough to do this and were able to give sincere compliments shows they had been receiving so much love. Here is a picture from that time…

Now let me share about some of the different girls who attended. For the girl pictured below she was a bit closed at the start of the camp and took a while to open up. But, as you can see from the picture, the love of the volunteers and the safe atmosphere of the camp softened her and soon she was not just receiving the affection but was also returning it.

The girl below (pictured with Jee) was our oldest at the camp; our only 6th grader. She attended our camp last year and was the most difficult of the girls that year. She was cold, complained a lot, and rejected love. We knew she was enjoying the camp last year despite her attitude, but she definitely tested the volunteers. This year, however, she was very different! She was clearly happy to be back. This time around she didn’t push people away or act coldly when they tried to show love to her. And on the last day when a bunch of the volunteers went to group hug her she didn’t try and evade them but rather smiled and received all their hugs. It warmed my heart seeing the changes in her.

The young girl below was brand new to our camp and came with three other girls from her children’s home, but was clearly not close with them. We found out she was being raised in a separate room from the other girls who attended and we could tell she was hungry for love. She absolutely soaked in all the smiles, compliments, high fives, and hugs during the camp. The volunteers who escorted her to the camp told me she was always the first to be out in the morning waiting for them to arrive, clearly so excited to attend the camp. I’m so thankful for our amazing volunteers who loved these girls so well.

The little one below was another one of the three returning girls from last year. She, like the oldest girl, was also very difficult last year. And like the oldest girl, she also changed a lot. She still has a fire in her, but her attitude was much better and she was much more receptive to the love. You can see by her face below just how much she was enjoying the camp.

Below is a picture of my wife and I with four girls from the children’s home that I lived in for three years beginning in 2005 and served at for 14 years. I have known these girls since they were babies, but I wasn’t able to be close with them until this camp. They had heard of me a lot from the older kids in the home and while I was driving them to the camp the first morning they told me, “We didn’t sleep much last night because we were excited to get to be with you.” We had so much fun together during those drives to and from the camp. During the last drive home while three of the girls were laughing and talking one other girl was very quiet and reflective. Just before we drove into the children’s home she looked at me and said, “JM, I’m very thankful that we got to spend the last three days together and that I got to know you more.” That blessed my heart so much!

Here are some more pictures of the girls, including the five different table groups.

God is good! We heard from one children’s home new to our camp that the girls raved about their time with us and expressed strongly that every year they MUST be able to attend our arts and crafts camp. So cute! We’re excited to have almost all of these girls back next year and we hope that many more will be able to join us.

Special thanks to KARIS, Saving Grace, KKOOM, and Second Hand Rose for your generous support for this camp.

Special thanks to Pastor Joe and Pastor Stephen of Youngnak Church IWE for graciously helping us with our room reservation and being supportive of our 13th camp at Youngnak.

Special thanks to Michael and Sky for taking these wonderful pictures.

Special thanks to all our volunteers for serving so faithfully during the camp and for loving the girls so well.

Special thanks to Jee Lee for directing the camp for the 14th time. Just tonight we spent some time with some girls who attended the very first camp back in 2009. They are 26 years old now. Time flies!

And special thanks to God for His great love for these kids (Psalm 68:5-6). His love was clearly present all three days. God is good!

Last, here is a bonus picture from our 8th annual basketball camp. The junior high and high school kids had a great time!