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The most used Farsi word at Newcomers camp 2025 must have been bishi. It means sit. It is part of an Afghan card game, the rules of which aren’t important, save that this word is said (yelled) a lot, with increasing intensity, if you take too long to finish your turn. Between barely knowing how to play and having a table of 15 kids yelling “bishi, bishi, bishi” at me, my first time playing this card game was a rather stressful ordeal (I lost, one of my opponents was eight years old).

At camp, card games usually began around 9 pm after a full day of activities, meals, and events. Typically, my table was filled with kids and other young adults around my age. Most of us had not known each other prior to camp but no one would have been able to tell. I remember it as being incredibly fun. I’m sure others remember us as being incredibly loud.

The energy at these card tables was vibrant and the thoughts and wonderings of the kids I spoke to were as endless as they were varied. I heard stories about biking for the first time, getting violently flung into the ocean while tubing, what Bollywood songs are popular in Afghanistan, and expert opinions on who is the world’s best soccer player. Paradoxically, however, most meaningful to me were the conversations I could not understand.

When the kids around me spoke to each other in Farsi, a metamorphosis took place. They became bolder, more confident and spoke loudly with vividness, animation, and ease. English being a second language took effort to speak. Farsi was innate. And though often I sat at these games in incomprehension, there is one thing I did know the meaning of: laughter. Loud cackling was indissociable from these card games and kids who had been so shy and timid when they first arrived at camp were now having so much fun they stayed awake till they were literally falling asleep in their chairs (true story).

Camp has been finished now for four weeks. And though it's done, it feels strangely like it was also the start of something extraordinary. Like it was the birthplace of friendships that will last generations and stories that will one day turn to legend. Camp left me with two main takeaways.

Firstly, looking around those card tables late in the afternoon felt like I was looking in a mirror. And in the reflection I saw myself, I saw my brother, I saw my cousins, I saw my friends. These card games were a revelation of the kinship among all of humanity, how similar we all really are, as I realized that everyone listens to music, has the same fears, and has an opinion on whether Messi or Ronaldo is better at soccer.

Secondly, I was able to realize how important events like Newcomers Camp really are as they so clearly show the work of God being done in real time. Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” For me, newcomers camp declared the glory, goodness, and faithfulness of God loudly with every delighted shriek of someone splashing in the water, every jumble of words comprising a child’s camp adventure story, and with every laughter filled room as a group played cards, tea in hand, wildly yelling bishi, bishi, bishi.