Highlights From Czech 2012

An update from Czech Republic! I anticipate this will be a 2 part update... This is the first part that I typed up yesterday afternoon... There's so much more to tell, but not too much time to update date it all right now. So I will have to do a "Part 2" tonight or tomorrow!

Ahoy! We can hardly believe that our week of teaching English is already over. The time flew by so quickly!

Here are a couple highlights from our week:

• Dave’s got his suitcase! It arrived Sunday evening, which was right when his extra carry-on clothing supply ran out! Perfect timing. Thank you for praying!!!

• The camp nearly flooded during the beginning of the week. The little stream that ran by the camp covered the soccer field and came up almost all the way to the parking lot. Crazy. (The camp actually flooded TWICE. I'll write more about the second time in my next post. The second time was way worse! But we were all fine.)

Flooding from early in the week

• Despite a week of exhaustion, our whole team has had excellent health (so far). Praise God! Please pray for our strength and health during these last few days.

• There is an ostrich farm right next to the camp. Yes, an ostrich farm. The male ostrich would do a crazy “intimidation dance” whenever he felt threatened. He was huge.

Fine Fella

• There are incredibly beautiful woods and rolling hills all around the camp. Breathtaking views that reminded us of God’s glory and creativity.

Beautiful woods near the camp

• We had amazing students. Really! We both had so much fun with our classes. We talked about life goals, relationships, idioms, culture clashes, slang, folk tales, past tense, future tense, crazy synonyms and homonyms, court room drama, forgiveness, and so much more. And we ate lots of Jelly Bellys.

Shena and her class



Dave teaching

• The evening programs were stellar. Dave got to play drums every evening with some really talented Czechs.  There were some remarkable testimonies given. Rebecca and Leonard Ahlstrom shared Meagan’s story on Thursday night. Please pray that this story of tragedy and God’s provision will continue to impact the Czech students in the weeks and months to come. Pray that they evaluate their own lives in light of Meagan’s.

Joel teaching theology on a Czech mountainside...

Sad to leave camp... :(

We really felt God’s presence at the camp. Hearts and lives were changed and are continuing to change. Please pray with us today, tomorrow, and onward! Both of us really felt an intense need to pray for spiritual victory at this camp. We know that seeds of spiritual awakening have been planted and watered. We are pleading with God and praying that these seeds take root. We desire for all of our Czech friends to know how deeply God loves them! During the final evening of camp (Friday night), the students were given the opportunity to spend time in meditation and to reflect on their week at camp. This was such a cool night. I will have to post more about it later!

Rain as we packed up the bus to leave camp...