The Players

A beautiful summer of English camps has drawn to a close...I just wannt give a shout out to those who faithfully served all year long, making these camps possible: YAY Mel and Amy and Lucka and Romana! And to those who served all summer long: Team Sumperk, Brad and Greg's team, Nate's team. And to my own personal intern Jitka: I miss you already!!!

the fab four! mel, amy, luc and romie 

jitka and i at "the golden suckling pig" restaurant in prague 

tuff stuff: all the czech summer interns showing off their pipes...do you have tickets to the gun show?

Letovice Camp!

Imagine...one of the coolest youth groups in the country plus 2 intern teams together for the last camp of the summer...it was so fun. And it was rich. The Letovice group did a great job caring for all the students at camp. Our prayers for unity among us believers were definitely answered. And two girls, Ilca and Jitka, trusted Christ that week.

The best was one afternoon during free time. I was in my room with "the little girls" (14-15 years old: see the photo below!) and two of them (Eliska and Verca) started asking Maja all sorts of spiritual questions: what's the difference between Protestants and Catholics, what rules does a Christian have to follow, etc...as Maja talked about grace and the Christian life, I prayed for her and marveled at how God's given this 14 year old so much wisdom. It was beautiful, and as they kept talking the real issues came out: if they decided to follow Jesus, their friends would laugh at them and reject them, and they weren't ready for that. Please pray for these two dear girls!


Other Highlights:
*Having to find 8 cups of blueberries per team during the scavenger hunt, and then getting blueberry dumplings that night.
*Shaving "I love Mel" into Brad's mohawk.
*Capture the flag in the woods and knee-high grass.
*"To je Nateova chyba"/"It's Nate's fault"
*The homemade slip and slide.
*Group 3's rap video...I wish I could put it on this blog, I almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard.

amazon woman on the slopes of the eagle mountains

camp roommates: maja, me, monika, eliska and verca

bara and homemade blueberry dumplings! 

jitka, katka and another jitka 

bara, ilca and aja 

Follow Up

After camp, we went back to Letovice with everyone for FOLLOW UP. You may wonder what the heck is follow up? Well, in this context it's when a group of Americans goes back to the home town of the campers and we all spend more time together and the Americans are hosted in the students' homes. Follow up is priceless for several reasons: it brings the camp experience home for the students; the US kids get a chance to experience real Czech life; it's a concrete step to releasing the care for the students even more into the hands of the Czech youth group. Letovice does a great job a caring for students after camps. For those who became Christians or are seeking, there's a mentorship system in place and they can easily get connected with an older youth group member who can meet with them. For example: last year Marketa (16) became a believer at camp, and she was discipled by Petra (19) who's discipled by Alca (27).

monika and spanish 

lunch together in the letovice church 

the letovice youth group english camp team perched on the church

The Old West City in Boskovice, CZ

The Sunday during Letovice Follow Up we all went to this western town...they had everything from Rent-A-Goat (only 10 crowns!) to a mechanical bucking bronco to spear throwing to dress up clothes to guys running around in pseudo loin clothes...yep. Is this another reason Europe Rocks? Minus the loin clothes...

greg and his goat 

nate, jahnel and hermejs...did ladies have sideburns that big in the old west? 

ride 'em, cowboy pavlik! 

Why Europe Rocks: Reason #6

"At the...what?"

Here in Europe, a lot of places are really old. And the older a place is, the stranger the name it has. In Czech, the name of the place is usually described by what it's by or at. So, for example, there's a restaurant called "At the Two Suns" and you'll look up and see two old suns on the building somewhere. Or like the above hotel is called "By the Golden Well." There are also places called: "By the Mill", "At the Three Ostriches," "By the Black Madonna," and my new favorite is just: "The Crooked Dog Pension." I don't know if we could get away with that in the States. We'd have stuff like "At the Five-Way Intersection" or "By the Big Starbucks," "The Super Target Pension"...it's just not as cool, somehow.

for a good time...

go to http://www.marshill.cc/weblog/?iBlogID=45
This is my sister Dana's blog and everytime I read it I literally shout with laughter...if you have ever had small children, think mild body function humor is funny, have lived in a college town or the midwest, then this blog is for you.