We are two days into English Camp here at Melanovice in the Czech Republic. Praise God with us for a great turnout of youth from the city of Cesky Tesin and its surrounding villages. I (Gretchen) feel like we still have not fully recovered – physically – from the camp in Russia but each day the Lord gives the strength and grace that we need to build meaningful relationships here in Czech. It honestly took more mental energy that we had left in our reserves to gear up for another full week of camp, but our God is good all the time! Thank you for praying for us – we feel the results of your prayers every day.
A little about this present English camp: The theme is Revolutionary Love. We’ve been talking about revolutions – what they are and why they happen, both corporately and individually. Political revolution, religious revolutions, and individual revolutions. Revolutions occur because people are unhappy and they are seeking happiness. Each morning we come together as a team of Americans and Czechs and we sing and pray together and have a morning devotion. Then we wake up the campers for breakfast. English classes are from 9:15-12:15 each day. I am teaching a lower level and Justin is teaching a higher level. The classes take lots of preparation…especially considering that ALL of the kids know much more English than we expected, so we’ve had to revise ALL of our lesson plans :) After English is lunch, then we have free time to hang out with the kids until about 3:00. From 3-6 is sports, crafts or another activity. Then dinner, then the evening program. Jeff (the other leader from Grace Bible) and Justin have been giving the evening messages, and I think the kids are really responding positively to them. After the evening program we have small group discussions, which have been encouraging on the whole.
The gospel is going out here in Czech and it will not return void. We keep that promise in the forefront of our minds each day! It is a HUGE step for most of these kids to move from never having thought about God before to actually wondering if there really is a God. It’s not as though most of them have rejected God – they’ve simply never heard of most of the thinkgs we are speaking about…very common in post communist countries. But God is on a move here…we know it. And we feel very privileged to be used by God in a small way here in Eastern Europe. We are praying that some of these kids would become leaders in the Christian community here and maybe even become missionaries to other parts of Czech, Eastern Europe, and the World!
Please pray with us:
- for continued strength, endurance, perseverance with joy, and motivation to love these kids!
- That the gospel would speed ahead and that their hearts would be prepared to hear it on WEDNESDAY NIGHT!
- For the long hike up Lisa Hora (mountain close by) with all the kids on Thursday. This will be a good time for a looooong chat about the gospel message the night before.
- For our Albania team back home as they prepare to meet us in Albania for yet ANOTHER English camp! By the way…we will need lots more endurance and patience and energy for that one, too.
Some pictures from camp so far… :)
Camp kids!
Gretchen & Justin in front of Melanovice.
Our fearless leader, Jeff.
Dan, Luke, and Jeff.
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