Off to Prague

Hi Families! It's Monday morning and we'll be leaving for Prague in just a few short hours for a debrief with all teams from Josiah Venture tonight and then a day in the city tomorrow and flights on Wednesday. Our trip is quickly coming to an end...

I promised pictures, however, our internet is not fast enough to handle the uploads - we'll try and keep you posted again but it all depends on the internet in Prague.

Thanks again for all your support and prayer!
Liza

Sumperk Here We Come!

Hey everyone! We're all alive and well here in Sumperk. It's Saturday afternoon and we're safely back in Sumperk after being at camp for the past week. The rest of our week went really well and our students all had a very hard time saying goodbye to their new friends. Thursday night was our Gospel message night which included a labyrinth of stations where they were able to reflect on their lives, forgiveness, sins, etc. and concluded with a hand washing station and a chance for them to speak with someone if they had any questions. Praise God, we had 2 students pray to receive Christ for the first time that night as well was 1 re-dedication and TONS of questions, students needing prayer, committing to read the Bible and see what it's all about, etc. God is so good! Many conversations happened after and students are definitely thinking about all they heard this week through Pastor Jeremy's teaching and our discussion groups each night.

We are now back in Sumperk doing home-stays so we're all spread out around the town. Everyone is doing great! We're all healthy and I don't think anyone is homesick yet :) This afternoon we have some down time and then will take a tour of Sumperk tonight. Tomorrow consists of Church in the morning and a BBQ in the evening and all students from the camp are invited to join us. This follow up time is HUGE in getting students from camp connected to Volant (the youth ministry). Monday morning we head back to Prague for a debrief with Josiah Venture, Tuesday we get to do some site-seeing in Prague and then fly home early Wednesday morning.

Continue to pray for the students at camp as they jump back into life at home. Our prayer is that they will continue to think about what they learned and how/if they want to apply that to their lives. Pray also for Volant and their outreach in the coming weeks.

Off to tour Sumperk! We'll post more pictures later today for you all!

Liza for the team

English Camp: Day 4

As you probably guessed, there is a problem with the Internet here at English Camp, but thanks to the resourcefulness of Radek, the youth pastor in Sumperk, we are able to connect now through a phone. We are thankful for the opportunity to reestablish contact with you all! The connection through the phone is too slow for adding pictures, but we'll try and share our pictures whenever the wi-fi is fixed.

We are excited about what God is doing here at English Camp! He is working in and through our relationships to bring out discussion about his plan of redemption. The students are responsive and in some cases excited to learn more regarding what the Bible says about God. During our discussion group last night, while the group was talking about the story of Judah and how God is in control and uses acts of evil for his own good purpose, one of the students that I expected to disagree with the story leaned forward, slowly nodded, and said, “Yes…I think this idea is very important.” He communicated that he had never thought through this before. We are so excited to see how God continues to use these stories of redemption as we lead up to Gospel night on Thursday. Everyone on the team is doing a great job! I am so thankful for each one of them!

Tomorrow we will take our hike with the students during the day. This is always a great opportunity for continued spiritual conversations and building relationships. Thank you so much for your continued prayers!

Because of Him,

Jeremy

Our theme this year at English Camp is Redeem. Our goal is talk intentionally with students concerning God’s plan of redemption for the world through Jesus Christ alone. Jesus wants to take what has been corrupted because of sin and bring restoration. The reality is that when we made the choice to put ourselves in the place of God and serve and worship things rather than Him, he did not leave us to our own destruction. He came to rescue us. This is the message behind Redeem.

We will be communicating this through five stories throughout Scripture.

Day 1 (Saturday) – Redeem

We will be introducing our theme. Our goal is to build trust with the students and give them a picture of where we will be heading throughout the week. Our discussion groups will be meeting just to get to know one another.

Day 2 (Sunday) – Unlikely Hero: Rahab

Our first story from Scripture is the story of Rahab. Our desire is for students to understand that nobody is too “bad” to be redeemed. Many of the students attending camp will have things from their past that they are ashamed of and as a result have a difficult time believing that God could possibly love them. We want them to see from this story that Rahab—the prostitute, the woman that no one really loved, who had lived a life completely against what God wanted—was loved and protected by God. Rahab’s story is certainly one of redemption as ultimately she is used to bring the Messiah into the world.

Day 3 (Monday) – Family Reunion: Judah

Our second story will be focusing on redemption in the life of Judah. Our goal is to establish the importance of forgiveness in the process of redemption. Judah’s story is also one of redemption. His brother forgives him and family relationships are redeemed. The nation of Israel is also redeemed from starvation during a terrible famine. And not only that, but as the biblical story continues, we see that God also used Judah to bring Jesus into the world.

Day 4 (Tuesday) – Persistent Pursuit: Ruth

We see from our third story that redemption must be actively pursued. We want students to understand that Ruth’s persistence in pursuing Boaz results in redemption. We also want the students to see that Boaz chooses to redeem her because of his grace and love. As the theme continues to develop, we also want the students to see that God uses Ruth is also included in the line of Christ.

Day 5 (Wednesday) – Second Chances: David

Through David what we find is that it’s never too late to be redeemed. There’s no question that David’s sin is very serious, and yet God brings redemption to the point that Scripture actually refers to him as a “man after God’s own heart.” God chose to use him in the family line of Christ. Even though David had committed adultery and murder, we still read in Scripture that Jesus is referred to as “the Son of David,” and this is how David is remembered. This redemption is only possible because of the sheer grace of God.

Day 6 (Thursday) – Redeemer: Jesus (GOSPEL NIGHT!!)

We all have a story. It starts with a beginning and it ends with death. It is filled with characters—some Good, some bad. We make choices in our life and we go through various ups and downs. We look for redemption in many different areas – our education, career, athletics, or looks. None of these bring satisfaction or ultimate redemption. God offers us the real thing. A hero enters into our story—Jesus—and we are faced with how to respond to him. Will we let him rescue us, or will we continue to rely on ourselves or our own means which only brings more brokenness? Jesus’ rescue leads to a redeemed life! If we don’t let Jesus redeem us then our life continues in its brokenness and death. On Thursday night we will be presenting the gospel to students. Please pray that students will put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Day 7 (Friday) – World Redeemed

What we find at the end of the Bible is God’s promise to restore and redeem the earth! Scripture tells us that the earth will be redeemed and without pain, suffering, or broken relationships. This is the hope of the Christian faith! For those who have placed their faith in Jesus, they will actually get to experience the perfect world that we had in the beginning when God first created us. This is a real defeat for evil and suffering!

Thanks so much for partnering with us in prayer as we communicate God’s plan of redemption this week! We appreciate your prayers so much and believe that God is going to move in huge ways!

Because of Him,

Jeremy

Training Day #2

It's Thursday afternoon and we're enjoying a little free time after several sessions on evangelism, teaching English, etc. We've had a great time thus far connecting as a team and everyone is so excited to get to camp tomorrow! We're attaching a few pictures of our team as we left the MSP airport and sitting in Prague waiting to head to camp.

A huge prayer request for us as camp starts on Saturday. We were able to spend time as a team praying for everyone who is signed up for camp. As of today there are 43 students signed up for camp that are not believers, 23 students from the Volant (Czech) youth group and 22 of us... which adds up to a LARGE camp! 18 of the 43 students have never been camp before so we're excited to meet everyone on Saturday!

We'll share more in the coming days. Thanks again for all your support and prayers as families. Everyone is doing great and I'm guessing not missing home too much at this point :)

Blessings!

We Made It!

Hey Everyone! It's Wednesday morning and we made it safe and sound last night. We had uneventful flights and then had a 6 1/2 bus ride up to our training at Malenovice. In the past we've had to run for a train from the airport but they rented a bus for teams this year which was great!

Everyone is doing well, tired, but well. We're excited to get started on training these next few days. We'll post more later. Off to our first session!

-The Team

Czech Team 2010

We are so excited to announce that we've got our team and we're set to go (well, we will be in 38 days!)...

We're taking a team of 22 students and leaders to serve in Sumperk, Czech Republic from June 28-July 14. Watch for more details soon!

We'll also be posting our team picture in the coming days.