Twenty-five children and teens (12 male, 13 female) attended the second-ever youth camp in Brazil. The camp was conducted from the evening of Dec. 26, 2016, until the afternoon of Friday, Dec. 30, 2016. Due to the combined efforts of United Youth Corps, Good Works and a generous private donation, the young people and adult staff accompanying them were blessed to be able to travel two hours by chartered bus from their homes in the village of Maloca de Moscou and neighboring Guyana, to the lovely setting of Eco Park, just west of Boa Vista.

Eco Park is a well maintained water park that enabled us to have many exciting activities that would not have been possible in the village, such as swimming, water slides, canoeing, kayaking and water volleyball. Additional activities included soccer, sand volleyball, capture the flag, and the owner of Eco Park even fabricated a gaga ball court just for our use!

Every morning, the campers and staff would walk about a half mile from the sleeping quarters to the main park facility. Everyone spent the day in the main park and then walked back to the sleeping quarters in the evening. On Tuesday and Wednesday evening, we made use of the indoor game room, where campers and staff enjoyed a variety of card games, billiards and ping-pong. On Thursday evening, we had a dance including many of the popular line dances at our U.S. summer camps, but the Latin beat music really seemed to be a big hit. An impromptu limbo dance contest saw some pretty flexible people, as the bar got down to only about 18-24 inches above the floor!

Just before and just after lunch, during the hottest part of the day, were the Christian living classes and also an arts and crafts activity that also taught basic table manners and etiquette. The morning compass checks and Christian living content was the same material used in the U.S. summer camps. All of the content was translated into Portuguese, and the classes were instructed by the elder Arlindo Lima and a young adult staff member, Edison Eduardo.