Thursday this week, we had a good chunk of planning. We met with the rest of the Josiah Venture Czech camps team and went over everything for mission team training and the second term camp that had to get done. We had lunch with the team which was a blast and hung out with an amazing Czech guy Lukaš for the rest of the day. We planned large scale games for a camp and went to a Fusion group that night. Afterwards, we went back to our apartment and made Lukaš’s potato pancake family recipe. It was delicious!
An amazing potato pancake. Trust me, it tasted much better than it looks...
There was a big storm an many trees fell over. This bench had a rather unfortunate evening.
The next day, we went to a youth group we attended two weeks ago. It was great because they have many on-fire believers and some new believers, and I ended up getting to talk with some of both. I showed up expecting to pour so much out but I left being filled up and encouraged and challenged by one of the students there. As is Czech culture, we went with some of the leaders and students to a pub afterwards.
After youth group, I had my first eperience going to a pub.
On Saturday, we attended the last youth group of the year for CB Těšín’s Basement (which is their older youth group ages about 16 and up). This was a really fun time to experience a Czech scrambled egg celebration. Quite literally, it is an event where they start a fire, and get a giant pot and fill it with like a hundred eggs. Then they serve the eggs on a piece of bread. It was fun to talk to the students about it. While I was expecting this to be more of a just a fun time, God actually had me there to have a long and deep conversation with one of the students who has been attending the group for a while but is not yet a believer. What was super cool is that he was asking questions about something I knew very little about a year ago, but God has been teaching me so much about this past year. It was an amazing moment to see that some things I learned that I thought were just better for my heart were also equipping me to have conversations with people. God used my unique experiences over this past year to connect with someone for His glory. Praise God that I could be used in this way!
To celebrate our last day in Ostrava before camps, our intern team ate out at a Korean restaurant!
We went to CB Těšín’s church service the following morning and while I didn’t understand the sermon (because it was in Czech) I was able to have some great follow up conversations with some of the people afterwards. Aidan and I were also blessed to be invited to lunch with one of the families we have become close with over the past few years and fellowship with them.
These past two days have been a lot of rest, preparation and for me calling home before I likely won’t be reachable for two weeks. Mission team training starts tomorrow and both of the teams arrived safely. Praise God! I am so excited for this first camp, and I can’t wait to see what God does!
Prayer Requests:
- Energy to persevere through the whole next week and a half
- Love for the students and boldness to step into conversations, friendships, spiritual conversations, and gospel conversations
- The hearts of the students at camp will be open to the word of God and that many would be saved and hear the good news for the first time or in a new meaningful way
- Finding rest amongst chaos