We’re not at camp yet. That begins Monday, up the road in Strikī. For now our team has settled into Saldus, a small historic city in western Latvia, using these last days before the campers arrive to do two things: continue becoming a team rather than a list of names.

Most of getting ready hasn’t looked like work. It’s looked like meals. We’ve gathered around traditional Latvian food at long tables. We walked Saldus together, took in its old streets, and continud getting ton know each other. It turns out a good deal of preparing to serve is simply learning to enjoy the people you’ll serve alongside. Our team this year is Julia and me, David and Angela Breidenbach, Ruth Cheng, Ava Tritsch, Larry Josephson, David Michael Carrillo, and Daniel Galassini — some old friends, some new, all being fomed into a temporary Christian community for the weeks ahead.

We also sat down with Daina Zandberga, principal of the school in Strikī that hosts our camp. These camps don’t happen because we show up with good intentions; they happen because partners like Daina open doors, year after year, and make room for us in a place that is already her life’s work. We’re guests joining something underway, not founders of anything. That’s worth remembering before the first camper ever arrives. God is already at work. We just show up and make ourselvs useful.

The other piece of the weekend was reworking our lesson plans. The final sign-ups came in, and the camp shifted a bit to match them, so we spent time adjusting — trimming here, rethinking there. This year the curriculum walks the campers through Living in Hope: Lessons from the Life of David. There’s something fitting about a team leaning into hope ourselves this weekend, trusting that the One who has been at work in Latvia long before us will do theKingdom work that no lesson plan can.

Would you pray with us as we begin? Pray that God would settle us as a team, that He would already be drawing the campers toward Monday, and that we’d have eyes to see what He’s doing rather than rushing to make something happen ourselves. We’re grateful you sent us — and gladder still that we’re not the ones carrying the weight of the harvest.

Blessings, Mark