Vietnam Camp

ALL PICTURES
(Get ready. Set. Go. This is a whopper of a post)
Over the weekend of June 12 -13th Dillon International held the 3rd Annual Vietnam Family Heritage Camp. There were over 75 children in attendance (Vietnamese children and their siblings- either biological or adopted from other countries) A total of 200 people.
All camp attendee's have had a child born in Vietnam join their family. There were eight different provinces (birth city/orphanages) represented among the children.
Camp is a time for your child to be submerged in the culture of their homeland through song, dance, art, food, dress, language and interaction with other Vietnamese adoptees. Most parents have followed each others adoption journey's and it is a great time for us to meet, talk and make lifelong friendships as well.
Many staff and volunteers worked tirelessly to make sure camp was a success and for all who attended we hope the time you and your child spent at camp was very rewarding!

Here is an overview of the events...
FRIDAY:
Camp Director Whitney McIntire welcomed families and introduced Dillon's founders Jerry and Deniese Dillon. Deniese reminded the families of their heart for orphans and how the staff at Dillon prayed for our children even before they became ours forever. Jerry opened the nights events with a special word of prayer, asking us to pray in our hearts along with him as we went before our Heavenly Father.
Ten Tigers came out and performed an exciting Dragon Dance for camp! The kiddo's loved the dragon and accompanying Asian music.
Then each group of tables (14 total) were called up to the stage and the families were introduced. Everyone then enjoyed dinner from Jason's Deli. All children went to activity rooms and the parents went to Coffee Talk. All three of these (introductions, dinner, Coffee Talk) were implemented as requests from last year. Parents wanted a time to know the families by name/province, enjoy dinner and have a time to mingle and relax without the children. All were a perfect addition to camp.
Families also had a chance to reunite with their travel group. It is wonderful to see one another as they were literally "in the delivery room" with you. It is also fun to see other travel groups you followed (sometimes up to 4 families blogs at a time) and see their children together. Precious!
From our second travel group we were able to see the Razavi's from St. Louis and the Robbins from China, who are on furlough. Both we traveled with in January. Here is a precious picture of Annie, adopted same day as Nehemiah. (And of course we are always able to see the Homans from our first travel group, but were not able to meet up with the Davis', Reeders or the Le's this year.)
SATURDAY:
The morning started off with lots of pictures. Each family with their children in traditional dress, a whole group picture, then each province had a group picture.
The mid-morning was filled with 16 different activities for the children to do with their parent. Some of the most enjoyed were the slap bracelets, fan painting, Ox handprint bags, Tet street scene and motorbike races. Here Avi Joy is sticking her people and lanterns to her Tet scene.
We had the most delicious Vietnamese lunch catered by Ri-Le's! We had a sweet time hanging at our table with the Sweets. We became good friends with the Sweet family when we were both in the Kazakhstan program with Dillon when it closed and we both switched to Vietnam.
The children returned to their activity rooms and Tonnie opened with news about OrphanCare and how every dollar we give impacts children. Jynger talked to us about Vietnam's plans on re-opening adoptions hopefully in 2011. Then parents were blessed to hear speaker Kim-Lan who shared "The fingerprints of God".
Her grandmother domestically adopted her mother. Then her mother adopted her during Operation Baby Lift from Vietnam, then she continued this legacy of adoption by adopting her daughter from Vietnam. Let me just say, she did a great job... very thought out, transparent and most of the time not a dry eye was seen in the room.
Two of my favorite one liners she said:
When talking about how her grandmother died 2 weeks before her wedding she said, "God showed me that she had the best seat in the house." Ohhhhh.
About adoption she said (something like), "Love transcends country, race and gender. Love is about belonging." Ohhhh, again.

Then we were dismissed by a teary Whitney. Thank you Whitney for all your hard work!

OVERALL: (THE GOOD. THE BAD. THE UGLY)
First- I LOVE camp. I LOVE multi-cultural families. I love everything that it does for our children and I love heritage stuff, period! (or exclamation point!)
Second- I will admit that after the last two years of camp, all I could see was that everything needed to improve. So this year our committee (Nadra, Heather, Kerrie, Leigh and myself) worked very hard on trying to make it as best as possible and truly make every change that we wanted to see happen from last year.
(And yet... there is still SO much room for improvement. Maybe I will feel this way every year? humm.)
Third-When I see others maybe not-so-much not enjoying themselves, I get sad. When they are frustrated with the rooms, crafts, food, details, not following the schedule on purpose, I guess I am just take it personally, but I shouldn't. We volunteered almost 40 hours putting this event together and trust me, we want it to be great too!

There were bloopers this year (and I had some personal disappointments that are too ridiculous to share, mostly art project related...)
No plates or serving utensils that delayed lunch. (this was a mis-communication)
No mike in the morning. (it was working later)
Rooms were too small for crafts. (we were in one room last year, so we tried dividing them, it still was over-crowded)
Not enough volunteers to run rooms. (more moms/dads need to help)
Not having crafts/activity ready for families right at 10:30. (this was because pictures were right before and us mom's didn't have enough time to finish pictures as a group and set up crafts)
No Q & A session (a speaker was booked instead)

Now mind you we have not had our debriefing yet, so I am sure between Whitney and us volunteers, we will come up with more changes to make.
BUT, overall... Camp was Awesome!
The children loved it. Families loved the fellowship.
Like Kim-Lan said, Love is about belonging.
Each person in this group of 200 belonged.
We love you and hope you will continue to come to camp.
(And some advice for you from my friend whose been volunteering for Korea camp for over 10 years, "if you want to make it better... please give Dillon your ideas and volunteer!")

AND TRICIA, Oh girl. You spoiled our committee with thank you gifts. Thank you for your thoughtfulness! xoxo.

"In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ..." Ephesians 1:5

The Perryman Family