uselessness.

i have found that uselessness can actually be a good thing. as i mentioned ealier in my prayer requests, the youth group in val mez did an amazing job at reaching out to students. during the night of the gospel presentation, we had a cajovna (tea house). i was able to talk to one of my roommates for a while before david butted into the conversation and took over in czech. so after that conversation was over, i realized that i had no one to talk to because all of the czech christians were talking to all the students! i had no idea what to do, and i felt so useless. but it was the best feeling i could have had at that point, because for the first time i realized my position as an american: to be american. the Val Mez youth group is solid, and it's a sweet feeling to know that the campers are still gonna be pursued and looked after by the youth group. and my job is to facebook the campers and still love them.

the group was so easy to fall in love with. the camp was younger than pardubice and had a lower level of English, but they were amazing kids who wanted to speak english and spend time with us. it's so fun to see the difference from the beginning of the week until the end, when students don't know each other and then when we're all so comfortable with each other. one girl kept to herself at first, but after days of everyone reaching out to her, she was laying on top of us and hugging us all.

we worked with a team from san diego and they were just what we needed - they were energetic and funny, and they loved the students. they were such an encouragement to us interns and really took care of us. they brought us american food and bought the girls some bath and body works shower gel so we could smell like girls again. i was so impressed with how everyone honestly connected as one group. i now have good friends in san diego who i can hang out with too :-)

here's a picture of the two american teams:

this is us being tough :-)

i did something different at this camp: i taught an almost beginner class. i've only ever taught higher level classes, but i really enjoyed teaching a lower level class. we really only covered three topics because there was so much repitition, but it was fun. it was more challenging for discussion groups for me - after having such great discussion groups in pardubice, i now had a younger group who hadn't thought through as many life issues (this year's topic is about being human - about experiencing different needs - love, success, failure, belonging, the difference between body and soul). it took awhile for them to really open up, but my co-teachers, amanda and john, really helped by being open with the students. kamila, my translator, and vaneta, the youth group leader also took awhile to fully begin leading discussion groups, so for awhile it was a little awkward having everything translated and having the americans try to explain everything. but by the end of the week, they had taken over discussion which was exactly what we had been praying for.

here are two pictures of my class.

this is our serious family picture. in the front are the teachers: me, john, and amanda. in the back from the left are klara, peter, kamila, radim, and vaneta. they were a really fun group, and they were active which was nice since we could do some awesome role plays!

we also had them each take turns translating everything that the americans said into czech. klara was probably at a higher level than the boys, and so i think translating made her feel a lot more confident in her ability. they were a very cool class - very different from what i'm used to, but it was what i needed.

amanda and i also got along really well and i'm excited to have a new american friend when i go home!

i wrote earlier about a girl who became a Christian, and that was klara who was in my class. she was cool, and definitely felt like she belonged at english camp and that that was where she was really accepted. she, kami, and vaneta really got to know each other well and i know that she will be well looked after and discipled. she's nervous to let her mom know of her decision. czech culture is so different - i know a lot of stories of kids becoming christians and their parents in turn kicking them out of the house. this happened to vaneta when she was 16 - her parents only gave her a backpack and then she was left by herself. but she knew that what she believed was true. pray for klara as she tells her parents about her decision and sticks to it! this kind of thing is so encouraging to me. here's a picture of klara with me and melissa. klara was really on my heart the whole week.

let me introduce two other girls who were as well: my roommates. eliska is blonde, and her sister is a part of the youth group. she brought along her friend, kacusa. they both have amazing english, and i really loved both of them. i enjoyed talking to them and joking with them and just taking naps in our room together. kacusa is such a thinker, and as i said earlier, i was able to talk with her during the cajovna. she studies history and religions by herself and is really interested in studying more religion, especially christian thelogy. i encouraged her to study the major world religions, and david gave her a mere christianity book by c.s. lewis. she was amazed that such famous philosophers and writers like c.s. lewis and tolkien were christians. i really loved these girls and found myself basically following them around all week. i hope that these are relationships i can keep.

i loved it.

i've been thinking a lot about my future, and i've always been going back and forth about whether or not czech is in my long-term future. i will always return to czech, but i really feel like this is where i belong in the long-term. i hate leaving english camp not knowing when or if i'll see some people again. the outreach here needs to be relational, and it's the hardest thing leaving people who i really began to love.

well, time will tell.

just a couple thoughts...

just some randomness. i'm seeing the end of the trip in sight, and though it's been AMAZING and indescribable in some ways, i am excited to go home and see my family, especially knowing they're all on vacation together this week. but i'm realizing more and more how necessary this trip was for me...i needed change. i needed to be here to be broken by God again, but i'm also realizing how much passion i don't feel for God and it hurts me. i wish that i could feel Him and just long to praise Him. camps have made me so dependent on God which is amazing, but i still wish i could just love God with all of me.


after camp with Val Mez, Keith and i decided to take a trip back to pardubice to visit some friends. here are some pictures:






just as a disclaimer, i have shorts on under my skirt. from the left is Vera, Vojta, Keith, Vitek, me, and Helena. these are my good friends from pardubice, i'm so glad i could go there and just spend time with them.




they took us to the top of a hill where there's a castle and we hung out and watched the beautiful sunset. really...it was so gorgeous.












the next picture is at the same place of me and keith. i think it's such a cute picture and keith likes it because he "looks manly." and he doesn't look manly that often ;-)

and now, finally: the big change. last time i pierced my nose, here's a picture of it (if you can see it). i love the piercing! this time...i tried putting blonde streaks in my hair. Vera and Helena tried doing it, but it didn't work. apparently red hair is really hard to dye - Larissa told me when she gets highlights her hairdresser uses a special dye and leaves it in for longer. so here's a picture of me trying to get highlights:

and here's the nose!

prayer requests!

here are some prayer requests-
-there seem to be a couple people who are sick, and i got a cold and a couple of bumps and bruises at the last camp. pray for our health!
-energy. my whole team is really tired, and it seems to be so hard to catch up on sleep. we're not feeling energized or refreshed, so pray that we're filled up for the last camp. it's our job as americans to bring energy, and we don't have any.
-there are a lot of new people coming to the next camp (Bohumin), so pray that we're able to reach out and make awesome. this will be especially hard since it's our team's last camp together and we'll want to spend time with each other. pray that everyone feels connected!
-praise God that at our last camp everyone did feel connected! there were 35 of us there and i feel like we were all really comfortable with each other and just enjoyed being with each other. also praise God for the Val Mez youth group from the last camp because they did an amazing job of reaching out and connecting with the students. and one girl became a Christian! more to come on these topics...
-pray that the Bohumin youth group will be the same in reaching out to the students. as americans we can't keep such good contacts with the students, and it's so important that the youth group make connections and relationships.

the a-team

let me introduce you to my amazing team.

we call ourselves the a-team for several reasons: awesome, allergies, ADD, andrea and amanda. and it seems as though we've gained a new member to our team. in the center of our hug is david, a friend from pardubice. he lived in america for a year and is an amazing translator, and so our team payed for him to come to our last camp with us and now he's coming to our next camp with us. it's fun actually having a czech on the team :-)

david's a funny guy who enjoys hugs but pretends that he doesn't. so for a team picture we just all had to hug him...look how happy we all look and how sad he looks ;-) to the left is amanda from chicago, then melissa from colorado. keith from arizona has his arm around david, and jerry from texas is in the back with a big smile on his face. this team has essentially become my family, they are my new comfort. it's crazy spending so much time with people and learning how to love each other even though we're so different and wouldn't necessarily be friends in different circumstances. but i love all of them and what they bring to the group, and i will definitely miss them all when we leave.

here are a few more team pictures that i forced them to take:

p.s.

mom, i won't do anything this drastic next time. but you still might not like what i'm gonna do ;-)
also, i'm not really satisfied with my last entry. i don't really feel like i said what i really wanted to say.
we leave for val mez camp tomorrow. ahh!

pardubice.

hmm. pardubice camp is done. i think it'll take a couple days for me to complete an entry, but here goes nothing.

pardubice was hard for me going into it because i have such a past there, and yet when my team visited, there was a big disconnect. but before camp, while at training, i talked to my friend David about it, and he in turn gave me no answer but to say that Pardubice has gone through big changes. he also talked to tomas about it, and there was a simple sort of answer: we were there during a big finals week, and a lot of people couldn't spend much time with us because they were studying. and it was encouraging to hear that david and tomas prayed about it.

so i went into the week without knowing many people on the pardubice side, but extremely excited regardless. we spent time getting to know each other, getting ready for camp, and then campers came. i did english testing, and when we were done, i just started feeling heavy and burdened. i realized that we were at english camp, and i felt unprepared in my english lessons, inadequate, and wondering what my purpose was in being there. i just started crying to myself, and kind of wondering what was going on with me. that night seems like a daze as i put students in classes which was so hard because they were all so advanced, and then had to lead the camp song in front of 50 people. i was exhausted, and then i had to lead a very awkward discussion group with new people who i didn't know, and i just began feeling extremely unsociable, yet annoyed at myself for not making an effort to make new relationships. but all i wanted to do was stay away from people, even the ones that i've known for 4 years.

bad start.

i can't even begin to explain my change. i shared my feelings with some of the american team, and a lot of us were feeling the same way. i don't know where my change of heart began, but i began praying a lot because of my feelings. the next day i had a really good English class - I was overprepared, the students had fun and were interested in the lesson. I was feeling more adequate. for some reason, the afternoon sports is where i feel like i really picked up in spirits. i was on a team with pretty much all czech guys and they loved my american enthusiasm and encouragement. maybe for the first time during camp i felt like i was capable of making and building relationships and that others really wanted to get to know me. i don't know what the change was, but it was exactly what i needed. the discussion group was also better as we were all more comfortable with each other, and i got to spend time talking to adam, a guy i've known for 2 years and who i really care about. he was in my class, and he's a philosophy major in college. we talked a lot about love and just life in general, and he asked me a couple questions about why i study the Bible when it's just a book. above is a picture of me with adam and his brother, dominik.

the next day we were supposed to go on a hike, but last minute it was cancelled because the youth hostel didn't pack us lunches. so i had no English class prepared, and no American helper. my mind completely went blank, and i actually left my students to go run around to other Americans and get ideas for English class. it was actually one of the best classes i taught - idioms and pronunciation. my feelings kept picking up, though they were off and on. afternoon games were also fun as i was able to hang out with some old friends. discussion groups were awesome again, and me, vitek, and vojta (guys from the youth group) each individually talked to small groups of students. i talked to adam again individually about love and why he can't believe in God, and i was able to share about how it's hard for me to love God when i'm loved so well by my family. i found myself really trusting in God a lot through these times. trusting God to give me words to say to encourage adam, and trust that vojta and vitek would be the same way in their discussions.

this is a picture of my class. from the left: Katka, Filip, Iva, Vojta, Anna, Vitek, me, Adam. in the background is the place where we stayed - we referred to it as the haunted mansion.

the day of the hike was also a good day as i was able to walk most of the way with Iva, a girl in my class, and it was fun just spending time outside of class hanging out and just talking. i was also able to spend time with helena, vera, and vitek, my long-time friends. i felt like i didn't have much time at camp for anything, so it was good to not be there. we actually were so close to poland that that's where we hiked. we went to the top of a mountain, and i think it may have been the easiest czech hike i've ever done. this is a picture of me and keith at the top, though you can't really see the background. i think i posted below a picture of me and olivier at the top of the mountain. olivier is an extremely cool french guy who went to camp last year with melissa and jerry and decided to come back. he loves meeting new people, and i really admire him...a french guy coming to czech to learn english. he was fluent in English and i was able to use my really broken French to embarrass myself nicely. i haven't taken french for four years, and i also found a way to mix it with what little czech i know.

following hike day, we got a new member added to our class. she was vojta's girlfriend's cousin, and she had spent a year studying as an exchange student in america. so anna, our new member, was an outgoing christian and an answer to prayer. she was so good for me especially during discussion groups because she let me know what was going on and was a really good leader. i know i already posted this picture, but anna is in the middle and her cousin zuzka is on the left. those girls are awesome. zuzka actually spent a year at donegal high school, but i never met her until last week.

the next couple days are kind of a blur. lots of ice cream, camp songs, and hanging out. i feel like i got to know a lot of people really well, but i also feel like the camp was mostly for me to grow, and that's what happened. i was so impressed with the pardubice youth group and how they all reached out and made efforts to get to know new people.

now we're at training and i'm feeling the same feelings of inadequacy. we're working with a team from san diego, and it's supposed to be our job to help build them up, but i feel like they're doing that for us instead. i'm feeling tired. but i am excited for this next camp, and i'm hoping that i'll rely on God more again.

here are things to pray for:

-me! i hate feeling like i'm not good enough to be here. this morning we sang the old human... "When Satan tempts me to despair And tells me of the guilt within, Upward I look and see Him there, Who made an end to all my sins. Because the sinless savior died, my sinful soul is counted free!" pray that i remember this, or i will suffer at camp

-pray that we can encourage the val mez youth group. this is the one that had no campers signed up, and now we have 14.

-pray for good connections with the san diego youth. they're a really cool group, but pray that we work as one team.

here are some last pictures:

this is me and bethany, who is also from lancaster, doing the camp theme song. i am sick of this song already. not a good sign since we still have 2 camps and 1 training to go!

this is helena (blonde) and vera and keith. keith and i stayed overnight at helena's house for our one day of follow up and had a blast hanging out with people outside of camp. we all had very little sleep, but lots of fun together!

Pictures!

ahh i hate having to do posts in little chunks, but i'm running out of time here. here are a couple pictures that i'll explain later.

Pardubice

well, camp is over. i can't write a real entry right now because i haven't thought through everything i want to say yet. so here are a couple thoughts right now...
-there was a lot of spiritual warfare throughout the week. especially at the beginning of the week, i started feeling extremely inadequate, and i was kind of wondering why i was there. there were a lot of attacks on our team as a whole, but i have never experienced such trust in God. more about this will come later, i'm sure!
-camp was amazing as a whole. i think that pardubice is where my heart belongs, and i'm kind of nervous about doing more camps and giving away my heart again.
-i got my nose pierced! if you know me, this is not something that i would generally do. but i'm feeling a need for change for every camp so that they're all different.
now we're having a day off ad tomorrow we meet our california team that we're working with. more updates to come, with pictures!