Team Awesome Assemble!!

As you may or may not know, our team has thus far in our trip consisted of myself, Leah, Dan, and Lisa. Over the past month our friendship has grown and our teamness(ess) has strengthened. Now we have a fifth member to our group, he is Czech and due to the fact that he was studying abroad in Scotland, he was not able to join us until now. Well......now.....after a month of the summer already being over, our team is finally complete with the addition of Martin! He passed all of his classes with flying colors and is ready to embark on a summer of adventure with our team. We are now currently headed cross country to Josiah Venture's headquarters in Malenovice, first to do some construction work on a future missionary retreat home. Second to start US Team Training on Tuesday for Ceske Budejovice English Camp that starts on Saturday July 4th! Yay Independence Day!! For those of you wondering what this training thing is all about, let me explain. The intern teams (I am a part of one) are basically a mediator and guide for and between the American Team and the Czech Team. The Czech Team is made up of Czech's from the local church, they put on the English Camps. Now the American Teams are American churches that have partnered with a Czech church to assist with camps. They come for 2 weeks during the summer, recieve training and then help teach English and run camp with the Czech Team. Our job as interns is to make sure that, that all goes smoothly, and to lead English teaching. So I hope that brought some clarity if you were still wondering what I was doing this summer.

Please Pray for:

• Ceske Budejovice English Camp
• Czech Team
• American Team
• Intern Team
• Especially Training of Americans
  

Under the Weather............or Water

Like I have said before, it hasn't stopped raining for almost an entire month! This mixed with our team's crazy schedule has led Lisa to be feeling a little sick and to have a small temperature. Along with that bad news the Czech Republic (which is landlocked by the way) is experiencing country wide flooding. Many towns are being taken over by usually small rivers that run through their town or village. With camps literally right around the corner this is a potentially dangerous enemy. It inhibits travel (especially public transportation which most student use here) and with the potential of flooding houses parents could pull their children from the camps due to money issues.

Please pray for:

• Flooding and rain to stop
• Safe travel for team and students
• Lisa's health

Still Raining in Pavlov

Yep so two and a half days into our stay in Pavlov and it has been raining and still is raining. Almost all of the village's roads are torn up due to sewer construction. It is raining the hardest it has since we got here and since the roads are torn up it has led to the biggest road mudslide I have ever seen. It can be noted that i hae never seen a mudslide before so it might no be as impressive at it might sound!
My team and I tried to wait out the storm, because we had to walk through town to get to a place for dinner. Unfortunately for our team the rain did not stop and it continued to rain harder and harder. Our team braved the weather suiting up in make-shift trash bag jackets! Needless to say we ended up at the restaurant soaking wet, but we had an awesome dinner none-the-less.

Lovin' Pavlov

Our team arrived in Pavlov Monday night to start our English Planning time. It was really nice to get away for a few days. Pavlov is the vineyard/wine capital of the Czech Republic, so there were acres and acres of gorgeous vineyards, in some directions as far as you could see. We had the chance to hike up to local castle ruins that overlook the village. The castle was built in the 13th century and was used as a house for a local Lord of the area. I am so blessed to be spending time in this beautiful country and getting lost in the history that is a part of every road and city.

It's Really Rainy

For the past month that I have been in the Czech, I haven't really felt like I have been here, I feel like I have been in England. It has rained the majority of the time we have been here, but according to every Czech we have met the good weather is coming soon! This picture is from after our team visited the castle in the town we are staying in, in Strakonice. On the way back it started raining, and it rained hard! We will be leaving for our "Team Vacation" soon which is actually our time to prepare english lessons to use at the English Camps this summer. We will be traveling to Southern Moravia to a village called Pavlov and will be staying there for three days.

hannah montana...........smannah montana

So as I left off last time, I told you I was going to tell some exciting news, well.....drumrole please!! I met a Czech super-star! Her name is Ewa Farna (pronounced ehva) and she is the Czech equivalent to Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) in the States. Our team was doing a school visit in ceske Tesin and we ended up in her class. I didn't realize until after we left her school who she was, which explains why the only picture I have with her, I am looking away and you can only see the top of her head behind the student in the front right of the picture. Anyways pretty cool memory, so she is on itunes and has a couple videos on Youtube if you want to check her out! A couple of songs I like are Ticho and La La Laj! So check her out and be proud that I taught English to a Czech superstar! Below is a poster of Ewa in a store window!

Somewhere (Strakonice) Over the Rainbow

This is was was awaiting us when we got back from out trip to Ceske Tesin! What an awesome way to be greeted by Strakonice. It was mostly rainy and a little depressing so it was a very nice change! The trip overall to Ceske Tesin was very, very fun! We were able to connect with the youth group there and made some very successful school visits. We spent two days going to 3 schools and teaching for a total of 6 class hours each day! Needless to say it was a very busy couple of days! I hope that we were able to make a good impression with the students and that a few of the students decided to come to camp! Also in my next post I will write about how I got to teach english to a Czech  superstar. Not really that important, but really funny and interesting for sure!

The Olomouc Rendezvous

While on the way to Ceske Tesin our team met up with Trevor and Cassie Long a missionary couple here in the Czech. Well, not for long, they will be heading back to the states this month. God has called them out of the Czech and into different avenues of ministry. We walked around downtown Olomouc and ate lunch in the first floor of the building that Mozart grew up in (see picture below)! 

Ceske Tesin: HO!

So my team and I are in Ceske Tesin this week visiting schools to recruit kids for English Camp this summer! We are also spending time with the local youth group kids to prepare therm for the summer, because most of them are going to be assisting with the English Camp in Ceske Tesin this summer. Today we went to two different schools and where present during 6 hours of classes. We had the opportunity to talk with over 325 youth! A few from my classrooms seemed interested in coming to English Camps. Tomorrow we are going to visit a couple different schools to have some conversation in English with the students and do some more recruiting. The house that we are staying at is awesome, it is the pastor of the church in Ceske Tesin's house. We are traveling back to Strakonice after our school visits to spend some time planning English lessons for this summer.

Prayers Requests Are:

• Safe travels for our team
• Good reception for schools tomorrow
• Planning for English Lessons/Camps
• Team Unity

love

nik

Mrs. Belohuba

Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit an elderly woman who lives in the town of Strakonice. This is our team leader (Leah's) hometown, she met Mrs. Belohuba in line at the supermarket this past February. We met with her and had tea and cake at her (Mrs. B's) house. She told us stories of WWII and about her life growing up in communism in the Czech Republic. This was an amazing experience and provided valuable insight into the Czech's history in the past 100 years. Her husband died almost 2 years ago so she is always happy to have visitors. I am so excited to learn more about the Czech culture through its youth and through its elderly. I hope that I have more opportunities like this over the summer!

You have no idea

I just wanted to take a second to thanks all of my supporters right now! You cannot imagine how much your financial support and faithful support through prayer mean to me this summer. I have been in the Czech for 2 weeks and a day, already I have undergone trials and had a few different interesting experiences. I know that my summer has progressed well so far because of my support back home, and I really wanted you all to realized that, and praise the Lord for that fact! In short, thanks, please keep lifting my team and myself up to Christ!
This is a picture of me hitchhiking through Slovakia to get to the Czech Republic during the Amazing Race!

Strakonice

Our team finished meeting with the Ceske Budejovice (CB) team and we have traveled to our "home base" in Strakonice to spend a couple days getting prepared for the summer. Three teams are sharing the home base so it is a little crowded. We spent yesterday hanging out with nationals and then today all the guys from the three teams travelled to Tabor to spend two days with Greg Strock a missionary with Josaiah Venture. It has been great staying with Greg so far, and am excited for him to share his wisdom with the guys and me!

Cesky Budejovice

So my team and I have completed team training at Malenovice and I am now staying in Ceske Budejovice getting ready to prepare the church team here for the week of English Camp being held here. They are veterans to English Camps so they know the drill of them like the back of their hand, but we are trying a new teaching style this summer. The teaching style is called: "The Story of God". This form of teaching is more like a dialogue session rather than an actual teaching, which draws students into the stories of the Bible and help them feel like they are a part of putting together the stories read from the Bible. It is an unique teaching style which I am both nervous and excited to use. Tomorrow we are spending the day with the church team and I am leading a small devotional about servant hood, so if you can please pray that the Lord will speak through me and that the Holy Spirit is able to minister the hearts of the Christian Czech's I will be speaking to. It is almost midnight, but I will update asap tomorrow!

Prayer Requests:

• Holy Spirit to speak through me during my teaching time
• Lord to give me words that are understandable and heartfelt
• for renewed strength and rest for my team (we are TIRED!)
  

Training Almost Complete!

It has been a long few days and our training here at Malenovice has been awesome and exhausting at the same time. I am starting to prepare myself for this summer and while doing this for myself I would also like to get you all ready in how to pray for me right now! The summer from an overview will be school visits to sign kids up for camp, training U.S. highschool students who are coming to help with the camps, do the English Camp and then repeat.

This is how the summer will look so far:

June 5-27: we will be doing school and youth group visits to raise awareness of our English Camps in Ceske Budejovice, Ceske Tesin, and Strakonice!

June 30-July 3: 1st US Team training for Ceske Budejovice

July 4-11: Ceske Budejovice English Camp

July 14-17: 2nd US Team training

July 18-25: Ceske Tesin English Camp

July 28-31: 3rd US Team training

August 1-8: Strakonice English Camp


This is a very brief overview of my summer and I will continue to update on specific places and events we will be attending/leading/participating in.

Prayer Requests:

• for God to work in my heart and the heart of my team
• I am in control of all finances for my team, so for smart spending and planning!
• for us to be enthusiastic and real while "recruiting" students at public highschools
• for the light of the Lord to shine to students through my team

Thanks so much for your continued thoughts, support, prayers, and encouragement!
Excited to update you all very soon!

love

nik