Cesky Tesin English Camp 2005 *WHOO HOO*

This was my 26th English camp, and it was definitely one of my all time favorites. Even though it was a huge camp, there was a very family atmosphere. Everyone was super nice, and not one of the students caused any problems. Also, I had the best discussion groups ever...even from the first night, my English class kids were totally open to talk about life issues and sin and God and Jesus. That's unusual...normally, it's really hard to get students to discuss these things, esp early on in the week. One night our discussion started late, because I found out that one of my student's classmates had just died in a motorcycle accident and he needed to talk about it. Next to us, Jill was talking with two students about what one (non-Christian) boy was reading in the Bible. On the other side of them, the rest of the class was talking about faith, totally on their own.

Our last discussion group night, I drew the bridge diagram and asked my students where they are on it. They all placed themselves close to the cross...most of them still having some questions, and two of them super close to becoming Christians. And all of them were closer to Christ than where they were when they started the week of camp!

This camp just ended on Saturday. One girl (Eva, from my class, see pic below) stayed at our apt so she could get to all of the follow up activities without having to take the bus from her village. After camp, the American team and Czech team and many of the students from camp went to church on Sunday and spent all day Sunday and Monday together--eating, playing sports, drinking tea, hanging out downtown, hiking, etc. Today we saw the US team off at the train station and then some of us went out for pizza.

What next? Well, several students want to start coming to youth group. And many students want to continue the relationships--and the English--so definitely we will have some English groups/clubs starting with the school year. Some of the youth group leaders are also thinking about starting a seeker small group. And the whole Czech team is committed to continuing these relationships throughout the year!

In Czech, students typically take time to come to Jesus...they think through their questions, start reading the Bible, going to youth group, and even start praying before they give Christ their life. I'm looking forward to what God has for us in the fall!!!

drowning our sorrows in pizza...with a group of students after the chicago team left cesky tesin after follow up: claudia, bea, jen, pavla, linda, jarda, daniel, otmar and tomas, pavlina and andrea

all 100+ of us at cesky tesin english camp 2005! included in this are 23 us students from 2 chicagoland churches, 15 ministry team students from the cesky tesin youth group, and the rest are czech high school students 

my english students at english camp! anicka, pavlina and lenka (and me) on the top of lysa hora, the highest peak of the beskdy range by hotel malenovice 

A Normal Day At Camp

7:30--morning devotions for the Christians
8:30--breakfast
9:15--English class
12:30--lunch
3:00--sports
6:00--dinner
7:15--evening program
9:15--discussion groups
10:00--evening game?
12:00--lights out!!!

Shown below are pictures from the 3 main events of the day--English, sports and evening program. :)

my english class! from the right: tomas, jirka, eva, jill my american helper/co-teacher (with all body parts labeled) andrea, tereza and irena. from 9-12 we played and drilled and got them to speak english any way we could (telling each other stories, having a mock wedding, a talk show, etc) 

our sports team for the afternoons. this year the cesky tesin group also did winter olympics, and we're proudly displaying our country flag. the "b" stands for "blah blah blah" and our country's national anthem sounded like...well, you can imagine what the words were  

evening program! dancing to this year's camp theme song "revolutionary love" by the david crowder band. after all the games, dancing and singing the students listened to talks on meaning, sin, Jesus Christ and testimonies from czech and american students throughout the week