A crazy week.

It's been a good week!

We spent a week doing two visits in one to meet our groups in Hradic Kralove and in Havlickuv Brod. It was a great time to visit more schools and to meet members of the youth groups in both cities.

Hradic Kralove we stayed with a lovely family  and ate SO much great food prepared by Lanka, Meruska's (below, far right in the blue) mom!

The group here has a young, but strong leadership team. After a couple days, a long day hike, and bunch of delicious meals together, I found that I didn't want to leave. 

Havlickuv Brod, the second we stepped off the train and met Robert, Honza and Jonathan, we were laughing. They are a fun and goofy group. We enjoyed great conversations and laughter together, and we're looking forward to camp with them in a couple of weeks. 

I have met hundreds of people in the past 3 weeks. And though it's been a short time, I know I've made some friends. Initially, being in a new place is overwhelming. But each time we leave a city and the people we've prayed and talked with, I realize that the craziness was worth it. 

These initial connections with the leaders and students are amazing.

In normal life, it makes no sense.

We have a common bond deeper than being young, educated, Westerners etc.

If it were only those things, we would be able to have polite conversation.

This is something different.
We have different backgrounds, different cultures, different languages. 

We have never lived on the same continent. 

We've spent such limited time together.

Yet there is love.

It is only in Christ.

Next week we will do training with a small team from Florida, and then along with them start our first camp with Hradic Kralove.

Prayer Requests:
-for the Florida team as they prepare, and for their safe travels.
-for the leadership team from HK, that they would have the time and energy to finish their preparations
-for the students who will come to English camp, that the Spirit would be moving in their hearts and be preparing them to hear the message of Christ's offer of redemption
-for our team, that we may finish all our English lesson plans with excellence, and be spiritually prepared for camp

Blessings to you all!

Brianne

trains and more trains

Our visit with the youth group from Trebic was fun and so good! They are passionate and kind young people who are playing important roles in theirs schools and community as young Christians  and growing leaders. We spent a couple days with them on a mini-retreat complete with lots of talking, games, songs, and strawberry picking.

This is Annie  (with the camera) and Maria (with the puppy). They are 15 and twins, and we stayed with their family while in Trebic!

We also visited 3 schools and taught 5 English classes in one day! It was an exhausting but very worthwhile experience. The Czech teachers and students were very gracious and excited to have us visit. It definitely gave me a new appreciation for language teachers. 

Our final day in Trebic was Sunday. We attended church and met the kind people there. After saying goodbye, climbing the famous clock tower, and eating some of Czech's best pizza, we hopped on the train again to head to our "home base" in Vysoké Mýto. It is the apartment of JV missionary Autumn, and our home in between visits, camps and training times!

here's the view of Trebic (roughly pronounced trey-beach) from the clock tower: 

We will spend a few days here resting, catching up and planning English lessons for camp. We very quickly have learned of the necessity for good rest as our days are so intensely packed with relational, spiritual and emotional things, as well as being physically draining. I never imagined being tired so quickly! But God is good to give us the gift of rest in the midst of that.


Please pray for our team as we spend this time together re-energizing for the next week of visits and teaching. It should be great!


Blessings!


-Brianne

Tomorrow we really begin.

Please pray for my team please as we set out for our Trebic visit. We will spend about a week meeting students from schools and the youth group there, promoting English camp for later in the summer, and staying in family homes. It is a great opportunity to start getting to know the students we will spend more time with when they come to camp! 

Thank you for your prayers!

full circle.

The other night I met Connie Patty, a wonderful woman who has been praying for my family most of my life. Read her post Full Circle HERE and see something so cool!

(The rest of her blog is neat too. You can get a little bit more of an idea and background of the hearts of the people who lead this ministry!)
you can also read more about Josiah Venture HERE

Another thing that was full circle? I met and talked with a kind girl named Tawny, who is a part of Grace Community Church in Tempe, AZ, where I went as a kid! We even have some of the same friends from childhood! Too cool, huh?

We are so interconnected, it can only be through the unity of Christ and his Body.

Cool!

Prague.

It's a gorgeous historic city. Full of art and culture and beautiful people. And this week also 17 teams of interns running around on an Amazing Race.

Just hours after our plane from the US had landed, we were thrown into the city with our smaller teams and told to find our way around to different clues. Given a few thousand crowns for the metro, food and anything else we'd need, we were left to our own devices to navigate the city (and eventually other cities) and accomplish some pretty intense challenges. We didn't know the language, the culture, the roads or even our teammates very well, but after 20+ hours of walking, 1 overnight train, 2 countries, and only 8 hours of sleep, 48 hours later we made it to our training in Malenovice, Czech Republic!

We are all still recovering, but so far it has been so rich! Please pray that these next few days would be restful as well as deep and challenging for all the missionaries and interns as we are prepared for our summer time of ministry.

So, Prague? My time was not so glamorous. But maybe next time I'm there I'll get to enjoy the sites without the running :)