Strakonice English Camp 2010!

Our camp this summer will be another big one with over 100 people. In addition to our Strakonice team and the interns (hereafter, Team BonJon) we'll also be joined by a group from Cherry Hills Community Church from Denver. Another group that's joining us from Iowa City is...


Josh, Dana, Zeke, Max and Miriam are coming to English Camp! I am so excited it's unreal! This is such a gift...I've dreamed of this for a long time :)


Of our campers, about half of them have been to camp before, and I'm looking forward to us making new friends. When I think about who's been a part of our group from camp last year--Martina, Bara, Ondra, Gabi, etc--I can't imagine our community with out them! And it'll be cool to see who the Lord adds from this camp. As you can see, the theme this year is Redeem, and our heartbeat is that students would find hope in this bent and coping life, that life would dawn on them. Please join us in praying that Jesus would redeem young lives this camp.

2 cool 4 school! June 10-15

Every June, intern teams visit the cities that they'll be doing camp with. We knew that we'd have a full camp, so we didn't need to do promotion in schools, but we still wanted to do something with the interns...through this, "2 Cool 4 School" was born. Kakushe took elements of the Exit Tour we were a part of and created a program to encourage students in language learning and as a service for local high schools. Part of this program was the Reality Show Challenge where groups competed against each other. Here at the business academy Euroskola, they're competing in Fear Factor, to see who can eat the slimy (gummy) worm first.


Kakushe and I explaining the Top Chef challenge. Kakushe did an amazing job delegating, organizing and emceeing--you go girl! What a joy to see young leaders bloom!!!


Team BonJon introducing themselves. These guys were energetic, fun and had great conversations with our students. It was ESPECIALLY cool to see our very own Eva as part of the intern team: leading, translating, and growing in faith!


Top Model challenge--I was so impressed by how brave, creative and just GOOD the students at the schools were. Way to go Euroskola, Gymnasium and the Technical HS!


Students at the gymnasium--we did 3 blocks that day with about 50-60 students in each. We are super thankful to the English teachers and headmasters at each school and look forward to more cooperation in the future.

what's up--spring edition

Our every-other-Sunday cooking club (aka VIP) is continuing to rock and roll--last time we even invited the boys to help us cook and eat.


English club, Strak style will go for 2 more Mondays and then...English Camp! July 3-10.


Volunteering at Jezarka Retirement Home (ongoing). Three of us visit some residents once a week or once every two weeks. We've also helped them with weeding a few times and we hope to continue this over the summer and add more volunteers once the school year begins. Yay! This has been a longtime prayer and desire of our group to get out in the community and serve, and God opened the doors through the amazing Ms. Kleckova, the home's director. We're pictured above with Bonnie and Jon's intern team.

weddings and loveisintheairrrr

The Dicksons: May 16. Dania getting into the vintage Skoda. Even though it rained like mad that day, we partied like it was 1999. Later that night, the newlyweds, Lucka, Jitka and I all got stranded in the middle of a flooded field. Wish I had a picture of that.


The Nevrelas: Tomas and Lucka got married the next weekend--super fun and joyful. Yay! And more weddings to come this fall :)

very important peeps: secret identity overnight 4/23-24

Hayley getting a hand massage from Irca and Eva. The first night, Amy challenged us to think about how we form our identity--by what we hear from others, media, friends? Is that who we really are or who we should be? We had discussion groups and one girl later confided that she'd never thought about these things before and that the talk and discussion "hit the nail on the head" for her. Then we spa-ed it up with massages, facials, a lots of laughing.


Zombie Kakushe and Martina attacking Gabi, the original VIP.


Breakfast--Jane (Naomi's mom) and Milena (Bara's mom) graciously agreed to take care of meals for the weekend. The teaching was powerful for them, too.


Amy teaching, Lydia translating. Amy talked about how God sees us and who we are in His eyes, and then read Max Lucado's You Are Special--that book makes me cry every time! At the very end we wrote encouragement notes to each other.


Eva and her small group. What a great weekend! We got closer to each other and the Lord, and many of us began to see the promised land--living in the freedom and security of God's deep love for us, regardless of appearance, performance, personality... :)