English Camp, Round 2

In just about every way, our second camp was different than the first, while still following the same structure and still being great. 

Our American team was much smaller at only 3.5 people. I know in math when they teach you about counting they say that people are to be counted in whole numbers, but that is overly simple and this is not math class; it is my blog and I pick the numbers. That being said, 0.5 is a lovely missionary from the American church living and serving with the church in Olomouc, hence making her half a person for each team. The Arkansas team was composed entirely of graduated from college adults and they already had strong connections with the Olomouc church. Because the American team was small, we got to work with intern Team Lenhardt, our Ostrava roommates and beloved other half. 

I got teach with Chuck, the youth pastor from Arkansas, and we had a lot of fun co-leading discussions and English lessons. Our group spoke good English and we got to focus on learning new vocab and conversations. In our group of 9 students, all were Christians, which is a super rare environment for this part of the world. We were able to spend sweet time talking about our faith and encouraging each other. 

On our hike day, we were blessed with unexpected and beautiful weather. Since we were only about 5km from the border, we hiked to Slovakia, which was way cooler to the Americans than Czechs, and which may not sound cool to the many back home who still have yet to recognize that Czech and Slovakia are separate countries these days. 

The trail and view at the end were beautiful, and there was only one berry casualty. They warned us about how seriously berries are taken, but I never imagined they would require a dear fellow intern getting four stitches. Dan tripped in his excitement to run and share, holding tightly to the blueberries rather than breaking his fall. 

This church has been doing camp for years, but this was their first time doing it with JV, so we got to introduce new tools and structures. It was a great week filled with unity and fun between our intern teams, awesome conversations, lukewarm fruit tea (always the lukewarm fruit tea), and a rad dance party. 

We are now at training with our short term team from Chicago for our third and final camp. Time is flying these days and dragging us along with it. 

So there is just a glimpse of what I've been doing. I hope to write to all y'all very soon about more details, fun stories, and the many things I've been learning. 

Much love,

JB