The End... and The Beginning!

Well, July has come to a close and we are exhausted, overwhelmed, excited, blessed, and filled with joy! Our camps, follow-up activities, visiting campaigners, and interns were all a success thanks to God and lots of answered prayers. There is so much to say and so little time:)

We got back on Saturday night from our second camp. I don't know the final count, but I believe we had just as many people total as the first camp- 70+ people. We had around 40 Czech students, which was our goal. We are so thankful for what was a wonderful and touching week with them. For this camp the temps were, thankfully, much cooler. The kids, being a younger-aged group, were a little more open and youthful, which was awesome. The programs and testimonies went so well and I believe many were touched. A couple of stories to tell you of how blessed we feel and how thankful we are to God for those blessings:

- On Thursday evening of our second camp we were surprised by a return visit from 12 students from the first, older-aged, camp. They came back to share with the younger students how we had changed their lives. They thanked us for the first camp and they stayed the night to be with all of us. I can't tell you how that felt. We cried, we hugged them, and we spent a wonderful evening all together. I'm not sharing this to brag, but to let you in on our joy. This kind of thing is one of the only ways we get to know sometimes that what we are doing is actually changing others and helping them to see God in life here. These kids literally walked up a mountainside about one mile in a thunderstorm, from the local train station, just to tell us these things and to stay the night with us again. I'll never forget this night. This gift, from God, is part of what keeps us going. I've got chills thinking about it even now...

Here are some pictures from a slideshow we made for the students at the second camp. We got the idea from another video we saw where people shared messages with those they loved in this way. It was a way for us to say goodbye to the students and to share one last message with them before they left.

This is our intern Alyssa- we love her so much!
And this is our intern Madison. We love her just as much. We will miss these girls when they are gone and we'll definitely be keeping in-touch with them.

- Yesterday, for worship time, we had 25 student visitors from both the camps come to be with us. Yes, they were partly coming to say goodbye to their American friends/teachers who were here for the summer, but they stayed to worship with us. They listened while we talked about and praised God in our home environment. They learned what communion is and why we take it each week. They, hopefully, saw God in us and among us. Many took Bibles at the end and began asking us some questions about reading it and studying it. It doesn't get any better than this! This is exactly what we pray to God for after camps are over. We don't want just a week with these kids, but years of growth and learning together. We pray they will keep coming back for activities we will offer each week beginning this week. We pray they will keep looking for God all around them and that we can help with that.

So, those are just a couple of stories I wanted to share with you. There are so many more, but I know we'll send out a newsletter soon with more and with pictures. Please keep praying for us here and for these students and other friends in our lives here. Pray they will keep looking for God with us.

Here are a couple more pictures from camp of Jakub:) He's just so adorable and so much fun right now. He's crawling everywhere and getting into trouble:) He laughs and talks all the time. He still smiles all the time. He likes to hug. He loves to read with me. He has no teeth:) He's such a joy in our lives!