City Camp in Vsetin - Prayer

Just finished our first day of my third camp. Each camp has been so different. This camp is a camp in town so I'll be staying at my house in Vsetin. Soccer, volleyball, and basketball will be taught at this camp. There is a team from Christ Community Church in Chicago that will be helping with camp. I'm doing the soccer with two others from Chicago who haven't played much soccer but after seeing there servant's hearts, love for Christ, and how they interact with the students they will be great. Things to be praying for:

- I'm coaching around 5 hours of practice a day for the next 5 days and I'm pretty nervous about filling all that time so wisdom on drills

- Energy, I'm tired from all the camps and I'm sure the rest of the team is from traveling

- Student's aren't required to go to different events so pray that they will come to programs we are putting on in the morning as well as at night where the gospel will be shared.

- Pray for the relationships that will be built this week and how to follow up with them]

I have no idea how many people actually read this but if you need clarification on anything or want to know more about what is happening in Czech feel free to email me at mharty@frii.com . So much is happening its hard to recap it all and i'm sure i'm leaving pieces out. I appreciate your prayers and support.

Camp # 2

Wow, there is so much to say. Its been a little bit since my last update and its because so much has happened I don't know where to start. So to start, we started training at Malenovice on Wednesday the 14th. The training was with Josiah Ventures. There were around 220 Americans at training that were being sent out the next week to do camps, which was a record for them. There were so many people. Training is pretty good. it was all prep for camp, taught us camp songs, about the Czech culture and history, what discusion groups should look like, but the best part for me was connection with my team. I met up with the Crossway Chapel team which was a mixture of Crossway Chapel Willmington, Mountain View, The Crossing, a girl from California, and me from Windsor. On my team we had Eddie (Wilmington), Crystal (Wilmington), R-Bo (Mountain View), Jesse (Mountain View), Krista (Mountain View), and Laura (the Crossing). It was really interesting to see the dinamics of the team. I had met R-Bo before but didn't really know him and had never met any of the others and it was the same for the rest of the team, even with the two from Wilmington. Friday, we went to camp at Ostravice, which was the same place I did the first camp. There we met up with the Czech team that consisted of I think 8 Czech's and Brad who is from the US but has been in Czech for around 5 years now. He works for Josiah Ventures but is the youth leader at the church Mayak (lighthouse) which is who the camp was with. Then there were two more Americans from Wisconsin that met up with us to help teach English. We had a group of leaders from all over. It was amazing to see how we all connected and were able to work together. I'll talk a little more about this later.

So a little about this camp. This camp was with the Church Mayak in Vsetin who I have and will be serving with for the next few months. It was an English and Sports Camp. There were around 40 kids from the age 13 to 17. The structure of the camp looked something like this:

7:30 Devotional - for leaders but students could come if they wanted

8:15 Breakfast

9:15 Morning program

9:30 Went to either our sports or english class

12:30 Lunch

1:00 Quiet time

2:00 free time

3:30 afternoon games

6:00 dinner

7:00 Night program

8:30 discussion groups

9:15(30) night games

11:00 lights out

to be cont...

Prayer Requests

So a lot has happened in the last few weeks. I will right and update on that soon but wanted to just post some prayer requests. We just finished a camp today that went great. I have so much to say so I need some time to right about it but follow up starts tomorrow. We probably had around 25 non-Christians at camp. You can be praying for those students. Everyone of them heard the gospel so pray that they keep thinking about it, come to the events this week for follow up and to continue withe the youth group, for the sports camp starting on Friday, and for safe travel for a team of Americans coming from Chicago on Wednesday. Also, I build some great relationships this last week, so wisdom on how to grow those relationships. Most aren't believers but we get along and have a common interest of soccer.

Camp with Cesky Tesin

We finished our first camp on Saturday. The camp was with a youth group in Cesky Tesion, which is on Polands boarder. The camp was a sports camp that had airsoft, volleyball, softball, and soccer. Going into the week, I new I would be the head coach for soccer but had no idea what the level of play would be like. The structure of the camp was just like the English camps ran by Josiah Ventures. The Schedule looked something like:

7:45 devo

8:15 Breakfast

9:15 Inspiration Videos

9:30 Divided into our sports groups

12:30 Lunch

3:00 Afternoon activity

6:00 Dinner

7:00 Night program- starts with games and skits, then a night talk on the topic Redeem

8:30 or 9:00 Divid into discussion groups which were with our sports Then when we were done had free time till we went to bed which were as late as 2 or 3 in the morning sometimes playing cards, other games or just talking.

We arrived Friday July 2nd at a hotel in Ostravice, around an hour from where i'm staying in Vsetin. The hotel was run down and you could tell it was built in the communist era. When walking inside the hotel, you could smell a must. All the other leaders (some adults and some youth in the youth group) arrived shortly after us. We set up for the week. On Saturday I saw the field I would be coaching on and was surprised how bad of shape it was in. Hadn't been played on years, and was mowed for the first time in probably years as well. The youth came that afternoon. They settled in, we had dinner and then had free time for the night. A bunch of us played soccer that night. I was shocked by how good they were at soccer. I began to get nervous about the week. I had prepared more beginner stuff and I had no idea what I could offer them. Needless to say, I still had a blast playing with them. Sunday everything really started. Had my first practice and it went great. Once I had the first one done, I felt pretty confident about what I was doing. We had two practices. Shared my testimony at one and did a devotional at the other. I had a great interpreter in my group that loves God and was able to get to know him pretty well as the week went on. That first day one of the guys in softball broke his ankle. He ended up having to have surgery on it the next day. After having an injury on the first day, you start to wonder what will happen next. Honestly, the first few days were really hard for me. There was just me and one other American so I really struggled at the beginning of the week. Couldn't hardly communicate with anyone and I missed my first 4th of July. But by the end of the week, I could still joke around and have a blast with someone when you hardly even speak the same language.

The rest of the week went great. Played a lot of fun games and the talks went great at night. On Wednesday (night 4), I gave the talk that night on David and Bathsheba. It was a very intersting topic that was assigned to me but I greatly enjoyed it. The story is about second chances and how someone after God's own heart sinned but was redeemed. I started out the night talking about when I hit a train a couple years back. I should have died that day but God had more of a plan for my life. I had a second chance on how I would choose to live. That's just a brief overview of it, I could go on and on. I have so much more to say about the camp but little time. One student professed Christ and hopefully a few seeds in others. I could go on and on about the camp. It has gotten me so excited for the next one.

I arrived for training yesterday morning at another town and met up with Mountain View Community Church and 230 other American's for training. Its been crazy but a blast. Met some sweet people. Its crazy how you can meet someone halfway across the world that knows people that you know. Its really such a small world. We leave tomorrow for camp. Need to go but here's a quick update.

Camp 1

I'm leaving for my first sports camp today in Cesky Tesin. The camp has 4 sports, airsoft, fotbal (soccer:) ), softball, and volleyball. The students split into there sports in the mornings and then are all together in the afternoons. I'm in charge of the soccer part everyday which will be fun but challenging because there aren't many students and there will be beginners as well as intermediate players.

Some ways you could pray for the next week would be:

- more kids sign up

- I'm giving a talk on David and Bathsheba so wisdom on how to portray that

- that I'll personally be able to connect with at least one of the students

- patients with the language barrier. Its been harder than I thought with the language and its hard to connect.

The beginning

So I left for my trip Sunday June 27th at 8:07 pm. Everything went great. My parents and my brother took me to the airport around 5, checked my bag and then had coffee for around an hour. Saying good bye to them was when it finally hit me that I was really leaving. 4 months is not that along when you think about it but i felt all sorts of emotions going through security. I felt sad saying bye to my family, a little scared, but then excited. Everything went smoothly. Dave Foltz's met me at the gate. We were able to talk for a while, then he prayed with me and then sent me on the plane. He was such a blessing through all this. Helped so much with getting me here. I flew through the night and arrived in London around noon there time. Went through customs fine, got my bag and then it was time for the real challenge. I took my too bags, bought a bus ticket from the Heathrow airport to the Stansted airport around 2 hours away. I arrived at the airport to find it way to expensive to buy a ticket for the 5:30 flight to Bratislava, Slovakia so i bought one for 6:30 the next morning. I had around 14 hours to kill. So i started walking, which was tiring with my heavy bags. I couldn't figure out how to use the phone to call a Czech number for quite sometime so I couldn't get a hold of Jirka to let him know when to pick me up. While I was at the airport, i met an older man who was from the Netherlands but was living in Australia so we went to a restaurant and watched the Brazil vs Chile game. After the game we departed ways and I went and found a spot in the airport to sleep. The whole airport was tile floors so I found an open spot and went to bed. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much. The ground was hard and the whole time I kept waking up thinking someone was going to take my bag. I finally got up early in the morning and made it to my flight with plenty of time to kill. When arriving in Bratislava, Jirka was there waiting. We went to his car and started the 2 hour drive to Vsetin. We stopped at a sweet castle on our way and at his parents house on the Czech boarder. His parents couldn't speak a word of english but were very hospitable. By the time i finally went to bed that night it was around midnight and i was so beat. Slept great that night. Started camp planning the next day and then played basketball with a bunch of locals that night. It was a blast, couldn't communicate with them at all, which was frustrating, but had a good time. We were able to invite them to come to one of our camps. There are a bunch of planning that is still needing to be done for the camps so that will keep us pretty busy. I leave tomorrow to go to another town to do a camp for a week. At that camp, I will be leading the soccer sessions which is around 3 hours a day, a talk on David and Bathsheba, as well as my testimony. I have a lot of prep to do before we leave tomorrow but so much more to say. Its been a blast so far but a way different culture.

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