english camps!

we head off to camp tomorrow...dun dun dun. i'm really excited, but i can't believe that they're starting already. it's been nice and relaxing here at malenovice, but i admit i've started getting really worn out. not good for a long week of early mornings and late nights, so pray that i stay rested or i'll be really rude to everyone. haha.
well anyhoo, i won't have internet for about a week. parents, i'll try to give you a call at some point during the week when i get the chance, but if i don't have time i'll call next weekend. after camp, we're spending a couple days in Cesky Tesin staying at the homes of some missionaries here and then repeat the US team training.
this is our camp with pardubice, so pray for good connections and outreach.
thanks for all the comments!
:-)

pictures!

i have no idea what order these pictures are in, but we can try to figure them out :-)
so i'll go according to what i see. at the top is melissa and amanda, my girl teammates. they're in our shower-sink room that we had when we were staying in Pardubice. not complaining - the place we stayed at in Val Mez had half a shower door.
the next one is keith, helena, amanda, and i at the castle in Pardubice. our team leaders had to go get visas, so we had the day off and my friend helena met us. it was a good day! the next picture is a group from Bohumin with melissa - they're awesome! martin, michal, and kamil. cool kids! the next two are from the hillsong concert...raised hands, and from running up to the front with the girls...even though we weren't supposed to take pictures!
next is a team picture even though we're all sweaty. in the back is keith, jerry and amanda, and then me and melissa. i love these guys which is good since we're together almost 24/7 - my new family!
the next is amanda, me and keith doing an emo pose outside the castle, even though keith looks more like a little boy sulking.
next is vlastik's wedding - that's them dancing with an apple between their foreheads. and then my boys and me posing like models (almost)...vojta, honza, pepa, and uhlik. love them.
and the last is my team with silva from pardubice and petra, a teacher at one of the schools we went into, and then another random teacher.












so thanks for all your prayers and comments. this last week in val mez was great, we actually got to go into 2 different schools on friday and there are 5 students signed up with 4 more that we know are interested! we're still praying for 25, but 9 in one week is pretty good.
we're in malenovice this week so i'll have internet the whole time. yay! american teams start arriving tomorrow, so we have a wonderful day off. i'm going to tesco to buy supplies :-)

the czech smile

it’s been an interesting week. i think i’ve learned a lot about myself. the title of this is the Czech smile because I think I finally understand the Czech smile…it’s a smile that doesn’t bare teeth and doesn’t look happy. I used to be so annoyed with the Czech smile – being in pictures with people who didn’t look happy. I used to think it was a symbol of their reserve and quietness. but I’ve realized that’s not it at all…
on friday we traveled to Bohumin – a small town with an apostolic church that we’re working with. i was slightly nervous at first for several reasons. first, we’re working with another intern team who i don’t know well but who the rest of my teammates do; secondly, i’ve never worked with another czech church that isn’t pardubice; third, i was going to have to meet new people again, and kind of have to go through the new English Camp experience again.
the weekend planned was to go to a cottage (what Czechs refer to as a big house in the countryside) and have an english camp weekend where we would basically have a typical day of english camp.
so we got to bohumin and hung out with the youth group where I had to introduce myself to a bunch of new people who barely spoke English.
pause…i’ve never felt such a language barrier before – i’ve never really had the opportunity to. but when i’m sitting on a train, I would love to talk to the person I’m sitting beside. at the bohumin youth group, I can’t genuinely get to know the girls because we can’t communicate well. it’s frustrating! I find myself actually becoming jealous of my team leader, Melissa, who can speak very broken Czech because at least she can communicate with people I can only smile at. I can’t ask for directions – I can’t even communicate in a grocery store to ask where the salt is. I have finally realized how awful the curse of babel is. it’s been a bigger setback for me than I expected.
so. we traveled to the cottage – keep in mind there are thirty people there and one bathroom. I have never felt so dirty in my life. I didn’t change my clothes or shower in three days, and my jeans have dead bugs on them where I slapped bugs, and my hoodie smells like campfire and sweat.
yet even through all of my grossness, smelliness, and frustration, I feel extremely refreshed. all my nerves at the beginning were just nerves, and God answered my prayer to really connect with some girls. God has shown me how he works through the language barrier.

this is Misa. she’s a girl in the youth group (mladez), 13 years old, and we connected through simple, slow English sentences, hugs, playing frisbee when everyone else is playing football, and picking flowers for each other. the bohumin mladez was wonderful, and I felt welcomed and loved.
I also got to talk to my parents on father’s day :-)
pause…I have also never felt such a huge cultural barrier. we’ve been warned again and again to be quiet in public. I never felt like this was an issue for us since all we would be doing is talking with each other…no harm there, right? but in pardubice, a city of 100,000 people, we were walking along and traffic stopped, and it was silent. literally silent. the people were not talking, except for the five americans. hmm. I also have felt like we’ve been judged a lot in our traveling through public transportation. since we all have a big hiking backpack and a smaller backpack, we move pretty awkwardly and annoyingly, and I always feel like the Czech people on trains hate us for it. this isn’t always the case, but I’ve felt a lot of cold, annoyed stares.
so. following the weekend with the bohumin mladez, we traveled to the hillsong/matt redman concert. THIS was refreshing, and here I felt like I broke through part of the cultural barrier. I saw old Czech ladies dancing, and I saw a quiet, reserved nation jumping up and down and screaming. there were 4000 people there, about half of the Czech Christian population (and yet still half the size of my church). there’s so much to be said about this night and I don’t know where to start. most of the audience were youth, which was extremely exciting to see, knowing that the youth are the next generation. on the train on the way there I also met a guy who was definitely not a Christian but really likes hillsong – what a great opportunity!

two bohumin girls were there (ana and dana), and they pulled me to the front where we were jumping, invading people’s personal spaces, and raising our hands in praise to God as a united body. how beautiful.
pause…at one point, matt redman began singing “how great is our God” in Czech, and then stopped singing, and I was able to hear 4000 Czech voices singing praise to God. wouldn’t it be beautiful to one day see a Czech worship team on the stage leading the Czech people in worship in a language they can understand?
refreshing. my team is now in Val Mezirici and I’m realizing how much opposition there is to the gospel here. no one has signed up for English camp yet, and no schools would allow us to go in. but of the very few people I’ve met here, I’m already in love with them. yesterday we hung around outside schools and handed out fliers for English camp. today we’re heading out as the students leave school to hand them out again. pray for this opposition, and for the people. honestly, i hate handing out these fliers - it's hard to be straight up rejected, and then laughed at as you walk away! but let me tell you about the lady we’ve met here who’s in charge of the place we’re staying. she’s been able to communicate with Melissa a little bit, and yesterday when the washing machine downstairs didn’t work, she did all of our laundry for us. I think it’s so amazing to see love from people, and yet so hard knowing that they don’t know Jesus.
so this is the Czech smile. look at these pictures I’ve put on here, and look at their smiles…I now see beauty in it. my friend Kamil explained to me as we were imitating the Czech smile that Americans don’t do it right…we frown when we imitate the smile, but it’s not a frown, it’s an actual smile. I used to believe there was something wrong with the smile because it didn’t seem happy, but I realize now in spending more time with Czechs that it is not that at all: it is content, it is eagerness, it is screaming at a concert, and it is Czech. and it’s different, but it’s a smile.

let me end with a couple prayer requests and something I just read in the Bible.
-pray for sign ups for camps in Val Mez
-pray for me to be better able to submit to my team leaders – I love being active in decision making, but it’s not my place right now.
-our first camp starts in just over a week! pray that we’re prepared and everything goes smoothly.

this passage is from the story of Jesus healing the lame man. there were waters being stirred by angels that allowed people to be healed, and this man who was lame for 38 years was trying to be healed in the water – John 5:7 “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” I saw my selfish personality in this verse, and I began to wonder how many times I’ve stepped ahead of that man. I’m praying that I would be less concerned with myself and be concerned about healing that man.

internet cafe.

so this post won't be nearly as long as i want it to be because i'm in an internet cafe at the train station in pardubice. so i spent the weekend at lukas hambalek's house with his family. we spent a lot of time with the youth group...but things are so different. the dynamic with the czech team is a lot harder i think this year as it's almost a completely different group going, and they have made it really hard to connect with them. it's a shame because i love this group of people, but it seems like they aren't excited for us to be there - they're not really making an effort to get to know us, but would rather just be with each other. i know the intern teams have been having a hard time with it. this weekend was our only time with the youth group and we feel like we didn't connect (even i felt like that and i've basically known the whole team for four years), so it's been especially frustrating for me.
friday night we went to folklore night in pardubice...it was so crowded, and there were stands everywhere. but very fun. i got to see my good friend Petr Kotas :-) Saturday we had a meeting all day, Sunday was church and then hang out time.
BUT this weekend i got to go to my friend Vlastik's wedding. well, his wife is 5 months pregnant, but it's good to see that he's settling down. he looked very handsome :-) and it was also good to see lots of other friends too...the hrabal brothers, uhlik, helena and vera, and vitek. it was almost unreal being there. sunday i got to see my friend pavel who has pretty bad cancer. that was pretty hard for me. tessa, he's gonna be glad to see you! it was just hard knowing that he was so weak and couldn't really talk to me. and dynamics were different because the other intern leader was with me and i felt like he didn't understand how deep my relationships are with my pardubice friends. rough time...i came out crying.
i've also kind of been struggling about why i'm really here - what my purpose is. especially since we didn't do much the first week but training and meeting new people. especially when it actually hit me that basically the whole summer is english camps. yesterday was really refreshing. it felt good to kind of be in "my own" place again (we're staying in dorms at the university) - it's good to have freedoms and be with the whole team. but anyway, yesterday we went into a local school, and agnes's old roommate is a teacher there. we went into a bunch of classrooms and just briefly advertised english camps. then we were in three of her english classes and her french class (nothing weirder than listening to a foreign language get taught in another foreign language) and played some games and then just had discussion time with small groups of students. in the afternoon we had a free period where the students could just come in and talk to us. how encouraging! they were so excited to have the opportunity to talk with us. i'm hoping that some will come to a pre-english camp party tomorrow night and then to english camp!
so here are some things you can be praying for:
-connecting with pardubice youth group!
-thursday we're going into another school in pardubice
-this weekend we're going to a "cottage" with the Bohumin youth group to have a pre-English camp. pray everything goes well!
-sunday is the hillsong/matt redman concert! this will be our only time to be with all the czech interns worshiping in a way we understand. i can't wait.
-next week we're in Val Mez, going into schools and hooking up with the youth group.

thank you all for commenting! i wish i was able to have more time to connect with everyone.

Hebrews

Hebrews 4:14-16
14Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
16Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Before I came to Czech, I took a class where we learned about the book of Hebrews. I've been reading over the book and looking at my notes that I took in class, and today this little passage stuck out to me. Can you imagine still living under the levitical priesthood where we had to constantly make sacrifice for our sins? Where a priest was a man who would eventually pass away? Hebrews 9 talks about the necessity of bloodshed for sacrifice, and in the levitical priesthood, that blood was the blood of animals. But when Christ was sacrificed, his blood was slain, and this is the best sacrifice. We've been singing the hymn "In Christ Alone" several times through the past week, and one line has stuck out to me:
"Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid
—Here in the death of Christ I live."

It humbles me to think of how Christ humbled himself - He is God, and yet became man. He did this so that He would be able to sympathize with human temptation and sin, and because of this He sacrificed Himself for us. What a beautiful sacrifice - what love. To take all of our sins on His shoulders so we're worthy of God.

Anyway, I just wanted to share what I've been learning in my devotions. The last couple days have been fun.
We finished up training on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, all the other countries' interns left. There are interns in Croatia, Serbia, Latvia, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Yesterday was the first day it rained, and a friend and I went for a hike to a waterfall. We decided to climb up the waterfall, and the water was FREEZING! It was so much fun though...and on our way back, we decided to take a "shortcut" and scampered up what was basically a wall of mud. Needless to say, I was caked in mud and looked gorgeous I'm sure. Last night we all went out to eat and I got yummy pizza. This evening we're heading to a national missionary's home - her parents own a turkey farm, so we get to hang out there which is pretty cool! And tomorrow we head to Pardubice for a week. We'll be hanging with the youth group all weekend, and then we'll be teaching English in their schools and start preparing for camps.
Exciting news: we're going to be volunteering at a Matt Redman/Hillsong concert! It's the first Christian concert in Czech, and I'm pretty certain that just about every Czech Christian will be there, which will be such an amazing experience.
Keep me and my team in your prayers this week!

cafe.

well today is just about the lazyest (spelling?) day i will probably have all summer. i played dutch blitz this morning and learned how to play settlers this afternoon (and didn't do so hot). we've been sitting in our hotel malenovice which is the coolest place, and it feels like a cafe...with a gorgeous view. i'm searching for stuff to do though...everyone needs to do laundry, and i'm about ready to take a bus into a nearby town and just get lost.
well there's lots i could be working on, but i'm a slacker. it's a shame i can't load pictures on here, but with time i will!
hmm...time to eat lunch (but i just ate two doughnuts - woops!)

so here's the great update. it's generally detailed, though i know i forgot a lot already! i'm eating a lot, my stomach is expanding. i've probably gained about a pound already (how pathetic).
i also decided last minute not to bring my laptop, so i don't have much opportunity to use the internet. i'm borrowing melissa's laptop right now but i've been on here for a long time. hmm.
well, i'm sorry if i'm really bad at keeping in touch, but that doesn't mean i'm not thinking of you or missing you! keep me updated!
ps - i had my first fanta today.