Travel Day....to Camp!!

It was a long day today full of lots of travel with trains, waiting and cars. 

We had a quick breakfast so we could catch our first train from Brejlov to Prague. 

We then waited for our next train in Prague and enjoyed some shopping and yummy coffee. 

We then boarded our next fast train to Vsetín.  We are thankful to be traveling with our amazing Czech to show us the ropes. 😉

We then boarded our last train to the town we will be doing camp in Velké Karlovice. We were waiting for Palo, one of the Czechs from the team, to pick us up and were taking in the view of this beautiful country. 

We finally made it to our camp after a long day of traveling and met with the rest of our Czech team!! It was wonderful to connect with everyone again and pray for the camp that starts TOMORROW!!! 

And worship together!!

Please be praying for our camp, our team, the Czech team, unity among our teams, students, the evening talks, English class and for everything to run smoothly. Camp is jam packed so it may be hard for me to post everyday but I will do my best to keep you updated. 

Thanks for all your prayers!!

Last Day of Training

This was our last day here in Brejlov and it was a wonderfully refreshing day both spiritually and physically.  We got to spend more time with our Czechs and had some good quality team time together. 

We talked about our plans for camp and had time to prepare for our English classes. We also got to enjoy the beautiful outdoors in Brejlov by going on a walk together. 

We stopped to pick the berries, like the Czechs do, and spotted the small things in nature. It is so beautiful here!!

Some of us tested the water and went out into the river and others had ice cream and played games. 

Our day ended with doing the camp dance and camp songs and camp games.

We are playing a camp favorite, ride that pony....I wish I could have caught it on film because it is very funny, but you can kind of get the idea. :)

You can see how packed it is as we try to do the camp dance together. Very fun to have so many people from different parts of the world coming together for one purpose. 

We also said goodbye to a dear Czech, Martína, that has been a huge help to English Camps for Josaiah Venture as she is now moving into an international role with conferences. We are happy she will still be with Josaiah Venture. 

This was the card we all made for her.

It was a bittersweet moment as we said goodbye to her. 

We ended the night with worship, communion and commissioning. It was such a special time for our team to get filled up spiritually before we go on our journey to camp tomorrow. Please pray for safe travels, continued rest, health and that the hearts of the students would be hope to the words that will be spoken at camp. Please pray for our English classes and discussion groups. Looking forward to seeing the rest of our Czech team tomorrow!!! 

First Day of Training

Today was our first full day of training in Brejlov. We woke up after fairly good rest. We had a couple 3am wake up calls but many of us were able to fall back asleep and get enough sleep. Then we went to breakfast and had a morning devotional. It was the perfect way to start our first day. We then continued our day with training on culture, the gospel and English classes. 

We are doing training with 5 other churches so it is a little tight but fun to share the same love and we all have for English Camps. The training was very informative and provided all of us some great encouragement. Then we had a team break and we all had to drink the Kofola. :) Kofola is a Czech version of coke that they are very proud of. Everyone enjoyed it. I can say now after by 4th time here it does get better each time and now I do enjoy it. 

We were also very excited to come out of our training session to some of our Czech team from the local church that we partner with in Val Mez. It is always a joy to see our Czechs because they are the reason we are here. 

We were able to catch up with our sweet Czechs and then it was time for evening program. We worked on many of the parts from evening program like the loved camp dance, camp songs and a time of worship and talking more about the organization we partner with, Josaiah Venture. 

We are excited to spend another day here in Brejlov. Please continue to pray for great rest and health as we prepare for camp in a couple days. We want to be in the best shape so that we can serve well. 

From Czech with love,

Alyssa

And We are OFF!!

We left this morning from the church at 7am. James' Mom and Kelsey's dad were so kind to take us down to San Diego Airport. 

We made it down in great time. Then went through the security line super quick!! Then we boarded our first flight to Atlanta. This one was an easy one and seemed to go by really quick. We were also really fortunate that it wasn't a full flight and could move around a little bit. Then we were on to our next flight to Paris. We were still excited because now we were going out of the country but our excitement soon went down when we were waiting on the plane for almost an hour until it took off. :/ BUT this flight was REALLY empty and we had lots of room so the wait wasn't so bad. We finally landed in Paris with just enough time to clear customs and be at the gate for our final flight to PRAGUE!!!! We were all very tired now and ready to be there. Turns out our last flight was the most crowed but it was the shortest so that worked out. 

We landed and were super excited we were finally in Czech!!! Yahoo!!!

Then we went to get our bags and Praise the Lord they were all there!!! The Lord is so faithful, even in the small things!! We are almost there....now we need to head to where training is. 

The girls jumped in a van with on of the local missionaries Jirka and the boys stayed to wait for the next incoming Anerican team with another national missionary Martina. 

We got to see the Bohemia side of Czech and after about 45 minutes arrived in Brejlov for training. We had dinner, showers and played some games to keep ourselves up. The boys came safely with some more Americans and did the same. Now we are headed to bed and ready for our first full day in Czech tomorrow. Please pray for our rest and our health as we get acclimated with everything. Thanks so much!! 

Thanks for all your prayers!! 

Send-Off Brunch

We just had our send-off brunch this morning with our team and their families.  It was a wonderful time to talk about our trip and what we will be doing over in the Czech Republic.  We had yummy food provided by all the members of our team and shared our excitement for the trip.  We will be leaving on Monday morning bright and early to catch a flight from San Diego and will be back on August 11th.  We would love  your prayers for our team as we make our way over to serve the students in the Czech Republic.  We ask for your prayers for a safe journey, health for the trip and that the hearts of students will be open to the Good News that the Gospel has to offer!!

These silly American's are ready to go teach English to Czech students and show them Christ's love in the process.  We are beyond excited to be making this journey so soon!!  Now to packing...