By request of Denise

About to lose internet access for the night!

Here's a little picture of my "Family" here in the Czech to hold over my faithful followers! :)

(Kha, Sean, me, Heidi, Kim and Dan)

Ch. 2- Josiah Venture

Soooo, fast forward to the end of May.

Thursday marked the last day of teaching English classes in Brno.

On Friday, I was whisked away by car, traveling the Czech countryside with Nate Hughes, head of Josiah Venture English Camps, discussing LOST theories and plotlines on the 2-hour ride to BEAUTIFUL Malenovice.

When we got there, I sat patiently to await the arrival of my team, the lovely people I will be spending the rest of my summer with. They are Kim and Daniel Johnson (our missionary team leaders), Kha (from Arizona), Heidi (from Iowa, going to school at Goshen) and Sean (from Kokomo, going to school at Grace). You'll hear more about them later. :)

As they came running down the hill, I yelled "Hello team!"

Distracted by the challenge at hand and the uncertainty of my identity, they waved hesitantly.

The pseudo-awkward moment was eaten by the urgency of completing their final task to finish the race: score 10 goals against pro-goalie Jerca (pronounced Yair-cah).

I participated with my team in this final challenge of their crazy Amazing Race journey that started the moment they got to the airport in Vienna on Wednesday.

After epically running up the hill to JV's lovely hotel, I finished the race with my team as we stood on the balcony overlooking majestic mountains. Everything was so green and the sun was shining. It was gorgeous.

:]

Alright, recap over.

I have just finished my first day of training for Josiah Venture.

We went over what English teaching will look like and I was pleasantly surprised.

I thought we were just going to be participating in conversational English but we are actually creating lesson plans for 6 2-1/2 hour lessons!

The camp is geared towards conversational English so the lesson planning will revolve around conversation-inducing activities and other random games.

They also encouraged throwing in icebreaker games unrelated to English every once in a while to liven up the lesson.

I'm realllly excited for it all.

We are doing 3 camps, starting in July. The first 2 will be around Orlova, where the Johnsons live and the last one will be in Prague!!! :)

I'm really excited because the Johnsons are basically inviting us into their lives as we will help out with their church, hang out with the youth group and have opportunities for discipleship.

It's a nice chance to develop relationships in a set spot whereas some other teams are going to be traveling all over the country, jumping around from camp to camp.

The training has been great. The food has been great. The fellowship amongst our team has been great.

God has already been working His magic.

I love it.

To whet your appetite...

So, I'm not the best at maintaining a blog.

I'm truuuuly planning on updating tomorrow.

Here's what you can expect to read about:

Smurfs.

Conversation Club with Czechs.

Fruit market.

Make-believe S'mores.

Southern hospitality.

Tandem-bike riding on a one-person bike.

Dobrou noc!

(Good night)

Leavin' on a jet plane

Leaving for the Czech tomorrow at 5pm.

!!!!

The excitement is definitely rising in my chest, but is muted by the sheer dumbfoundment of it all.

Ohhh, goodness... at least I will have the true-blue companionship of Train's radio darling singing me to sleep.

...yup. Still stuck in my head...

:]

G'niiiite!!