What am I doing?

So I have been in Vsetin for two weeks now with no camps or structure so here is what I have been doing. I found that usually my day starts between 12 and 3 and then I usually get home around 9 to 11 depending on the days. So with that being said, I would like to have my mornings busier. They have gotten busier as the weeks have gone on but when I don't have anything going on I use it as a time for self study. I am readying a few different books and have really enjoyed that. I even started studying the language which is very difficult. Its said to be the fifth hardest language (not sure how they figure that out).I have been trying to have lunch with different people and Czech leaders so if I do not have lunch plans I will usually bike into town around 3 and then go to a park where a bunch of kids hangout and play soccer with them and handout fliers for our soccer league. Most days I will do this with another guy from the soccer club with the church or sometimes just go by myself. Then on Monday and Wednesday I have atletico (soccer club). From 4 to 5 its younger kids and 5 to 6:30 are the older kids. On Sundays, I go to church in the morning and then have soccer at 6. On Tuesdays, I started practicing with the city soccer team which has been a blast. They are really good. It is an 18 and older. The coach has played over 200 professional games so he knows the game real well. On Thursdays I play soccer with anyone that wants to show up starting at six. Then on Fridays we have youth group. We usually have been playing softball but this last Friday because of the weather we watched the Incredibles, in Czech which is a good way to practice czech. Then afterwards I gave a short talk on Joshua 1:1-9. I have been helping some families with some projects in their homes. I helped one guy build shelves in his office at his apartment. The walls in homes here are cement so I drilled 60 some holes in the cement wall. Another project was tearing down a ceiling in someones house. The house was 200 years old. It was such a messy job. We had to knock out the cement, then two layers of wood. It was tough and really dusty but was kind of fun.

Break dancing in Vienna

One of the coolest things were these break dancers. They were amazing.

Post Camp

So I finished my last camp I would do about 2 weeks ago. After the camp, I was pretty worn out. I took the Chicago team back to Praha on Friday August 6th. I just needed to make sure they got to there hotel ok and then do some tourist stuff the next day and then they left that Sunday. I had only been in Praha 24 hours before this trip so thankfully it is a very easy town to get around. I was responsible for 9 others. I was able to stay at a seminar on the edge of Praha for free which nice but it took about an hour to get into the city and an hour and a half to get to the Chicago teams hotel. It was suck a blessing to stay at this seminary. The guy I was staying with was there the first night but left for a camp the rest of the week. He left me keys to his apartment as well as an American missionary family that was living in the dorms as well but was gone for the summer. It was great. I was able to stay there all week. There was one other Czech guy there and then for a couple nights, Matt was there with me (the American I had been living with). I was able to do some touristy stuff. Did a lot of walking around, trying food, etc. But on that Wednesday I didn't leave the house till dinner. It was amazing. Was able to get caught up a bit on my blog, do some reading, watch a movie which I had done in a long time, and upload pictures onto my computer.

The highlight of my week was going to a Sparta Praha vs Banik Ostrava soccer game. Sparta is one of the best teams in Czech. These two teams are probably the biggest rivals in all of Czech with the craziest fans. A few of the Czechs I invited said they would be scared to go and told me to make sure I don't wear the wrong colors or sit in the wrong section. So just me and Matt went to the game. When we arrived there, the Banik fans were being escorted into the stadium with cops in full gear, helmets and all, surrounding them. Both teams fans were yelling there chants as they were walking down the street. I have never seen so much security at a game. In side the stadium, each team had there more crazy fans that were fenced into a section. They didn't stop cheering the entire game. It was an awesome experience but I never felt endanger.

Then on Thursday I took a train to Břeclav in Czech were I met 5 people from my first camp and one of there friends. We then took a train to Vienna. That day we just walked around Vienna and then that night went to an amusement park. That night, we stayed at a hostel and then the next day we did some shopping and then we left around 4:30 to go back to Czech so it was a short trip. I arrived back in Vsetín around 11:00 that night. I had stuff with me for a week so I had my backpacking backpack and then had to walk home. Its like a 45 minute walk all up hill. It wasn't to bad but it was very eerie. All the street lights were not on and it was a foggy night. One thing I have learned while here is to get around with out a car. Everyone bikes or walks everywhere. I have had a car for some of my time here but its cheaper and sometimes easier to just bike or walk. That's my short vacation. I could say a lot more but it was awesome and restful to get away for a little while. I will update soon on what I have been doing the last week and what the rest of my stay will look like.

čau

First European soccer match

Camp #3

I finished my last camp last friday. It was a city camp in Vsetin. This means that instead of going to a hotel like the last three, we stayed at the town where most of them live. It was with one of the other local churches in the area. There were 8 Americans that came from Christ Community in Chicago. 3 of them were around my age and the other 5 were around 50 to 60. Most of the older guys have all done some sort of coaching in there years and love God so they were able to bring their coaching experience and there life experience to there different sports. The camp was a volleyball, basketball and soccer camp. I coached soccer with two guys named Quinn and Bob. They are both close to my age. Neither of them have played soccer since they were young so when I found that out I was a little worried. After we had our first practice and saw there willingness to serve and do what ever I needed and how I saw them interacting with the kids, I new it was going to be great. They were great, they would play when we needed an extra player, shag balls, keep time for scrimmages, or whatever else that needed to be done.

The structure of this camp looked like this:

7:30 - Bring breakfast to Americans at there hotel and do a devotional

9:00 - Meet at the Youth room for the church for a morning program

9:30- Sports

12:30 - Lunch

3:00 - Sports

6:30 - Dinner

7:30 - Night program

9:30 - Go home or go into town and hangout with campers.

Since it was a city camp, everything was far apart so we would have to walk 30 minutes, give or take, to anywhere we needed to go. Doing city camps are a new idea but I think can be a very effective outreach, especially with some changes. The opened up the camp to anyone in the town between the ages of 15 and 21. Nothing was required so kids would show up for sports and then not the programs, or show up for the program and not the sports. I had an average of around 15 kids at each practice. I never knew who would be there so that made it difficult to plan drills at times but everything worked out great. Coaching is a stretch for me just since I haven't done it much, but I have really enjoyed it. The weather was great for most of the week which was a blessing considering almost everything was done outside. It was to have people that I have been playing soccer with on Sunday's but don't know very coming to the practices. The highlight for me was having kids from the camp before coming to the sports and the programs. Especially two kids i have been reaching out to and really have a heart for who are atheists. They came to soccer everyday and most nights to the program where the gospel was shared. Also at every practice, either, Bob, Quinn, Jirka, or I would share part of our testimony to them. So they were able to hear life lessons and about God at every practice. It was another good week. Totally different than the other camps but not in a bad way.

Camp #2 cont.

I wanted writing about my second camp. We had around 40 students and then 20 leaders. In the sports that I was doing in the morning we had around 13 students and then I think 6 leaders. We did 3 days of softball, 2 days of soccer and 1 day of American football. I wish you could have seen them playing football. They didn't understand it at all. After explaining the game, we went to play flag football and on the first play, one of the Americans threw the ball to one of the Czech's, he caught the ball and then immediately threw it up field. They didn't get it. We had 2 days of football planned but they hated it so we played softball instead. My highlight of the week were our discussion groups after the talk each night. I had 5 students from the sports group in my discussion group. They were all boys who were the older bunch. I started leading the discussion group the 2nd night. I had an interpreter that was great. The first few nights, it was very difficult to get them to participate at all. Finally one night, I just decided to share my testimony(life story) and then left it up to just let them ask me questions for a while. They started opening up a bit and asking me questions about my life, soccer, girls, etc. I think it was really good for them to see how open I was. It was like it helped them trust me more. The next night they were a lot more open. I think this was day 4. I found out 3 out of the 5 kids in my group didn't believe in the Bible. One of them said he didn't believe in the Bible or God but after hearing the stories that week he was starting to wonder if there really is a God. This is the same night i told them I'd be staying for the next two months. They were so excited. I found out 4 of the 5 live right next to me. The night was the high for me. I really felt like I knew why God had me hear. I was building great relationships with these kids who live by me, look up to me, trusts me and wants to hang out. It was amazing to see how at the beginning of the week,they didn't want to participate in anything till the end they were having a blast and participating.

After the camp, we had a follow up were the other Americans would stay with the students in there homes and we had things planned to everyday. One day we played air soft and cooked hot dogs and smores over a fire. Another day played volleyball, softball and then grilled hamburgers. Another day we had a program at the Castle in Vsetin were everyone and there parents were invited to come. The gospel was shared, there was a slideshow of pictures from the week and then did songs that we did during the week. The songs were a huge part of the week. Every morning and night we would do the camp song. The camp song was "Never going back to ok" by the afters. If you are curious about the song you can click on the this link. We had hand motions to do with the songs that everyone would get into. Also we would do songs like "Pharaoh Pharaoh" and some other classics that we would do hand motions with.