Bowling Alley

We had a little team building activity after church today. It was a good time. :) Later this evening we are off to meet up with students, our main objective right now. Next week we will head off to Lesovac, a town in Southern Serbia to meet and train with the Church team there for a week. I'm not sure what type of internet access I will have there, but as always I will endeavor to keep you updated.

Pictures

Ross Looking "Gobbledegook" in the dictionary....its there



The view of Novi Sad from the Fortress on the other side of the Danube



Our road


Nina, a girl from last years' camp who invited Kevin and I over for a DELICIOUS lunch



The team on our day off hanging out on the beach of the Danube!



A new friend Johanna. I have really enjoyed hanging out with her!

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Me and N. Irish Teammate Andy being Twins in our Camp Shirts

Writing English Lessons and Avoiding the Heat

Wow it is hot here! Around 90 degrees by 11 am by my measurements. Today we made "mexican rice and beans." we didn't have black beans so we used kidney beans, we didn't have taco seasoning so we used fresh garlic and paprika. It was really delicious!

Now we are beating the heat by staying in during the hot part of the day to write our English Lessons. It is going well. I have prepped 4 lessons for Intermediate and 4 for Lower Intermediate. The brain-storming we did at training was a great help.

Just to give you an idea of the types of things we are teaching, here are my "themes" for each day.

Day 1: Identity: Who are you?
Day 2: Nature: The World Around
Day 3: Relationships: An Ever Popular topic...
Day 4: Superheroes: Who are your heroes?
Alternate Day 4:Food Day

Some of my favorite activities include crossword puzzles, discussions and art projects, such as design your own superhero and describe them to the class. My favorite activity is the the cooking show that we'll be making on food day.

There is a method to all these fun and games. With each day of class the students will become more comfortable speaking English. They will become more comfortable talking about themselves, their relationships and their opinions. They will bond together with their classmates. This is our goal: To offer quality English lessons and a classroom environment that promotes relationships.

Well, I'd better get back to it. I will endeavor to add pictures tomorrow. :)

Mary

Novi Sad Tour and Concert in Hungary

Here are some pictures from our last few days:

Ross, Andy and I (We are still waiting for Kevin to come)



Me in My room (I still haven't unpacked :):




Michael W Smith/Starfield concert in Budapest: It was so powerful to see around 6,000 Eastern European believers gathered to worship! It was also wonderful to hear them sing in their own languages. We drove up with church members and leaders from this area, it was an encouragement to all of us.

Training at Malenovice:

Ema from Croatia and I really re-connected at training, I had a lot of wonderful conversations with her!!



Mateja from Slovenia and I also had many good conversations about life, ministry and relationships, it was so encouraging to talk with her



Several interns and I, including Jess going to Poland, Ema living in Croatia, Mateja who lives in Slovenia, Rachel going to Slo, and I




Tim and I being silly:



We had a lot of rich teaching during our week of training. I promised in my e mail update that I would elaborate some on what we learned. Here are a few highlights:

Dave Patty, the president of JV spoke in the evenings. All of the topics were powerful reminders, but here are a few that really hit home with me:

Vision: Seeing like Jesus: John 4:6-42
1. Jesus saw open doors
-The open door of requests: You can always ask questions like, "Can I help you?", "Can I sit here?", "Can I tell you my story?"
2. Jesus saw unseen needs:
-Each person has personal, and spiritual needs, if we take time to discover them, we can point them to the one who can meet those needs perfectly.
3. Jesus saw the Good News:
-Our message is a message of hope that each person needs and desires.
4. Jesus saw a ready harvest:
-Will we walk and act in faith, trusting that the harvest is there?

Jesus' most frequent rebuke was that his disciples had little faith:

Faith: Mark 6: 31-52
1. Give God what faith you have and ask him to mulitply it
2. Faith is Obedient to God's call
3. Faith perseveres. If God sends you into a storm, keep rowing. God is interested in far more than solving our problems, he is building us.
4. Faith is like a muscle, it only strengthens with exercise.

Pictures as Promised...

Me after hiking a huge hill to get our next clue, the skyscape behind me is Budapest:



An Escalator in the Metro:



The Bat Passing Game:

In Serbia!

I made it to Serbia! I left from CZ about Thirty hours ago! Here is part of the story:

We changed trains 3 times between Cesky Tesin and Budapest with all nine pieces of luggage. We had small delays here and there and by the time we arrived in Budapest, where we would catch a train to Serbia, our train was 68 minutes late, so we missed the connecting train by an hour! The next train did not leave for 12 hours! So... we needed to get a hotel. Before we got to the hotel, we found that we were locked in the train station, locked IN! So we drug our bags to each of the three exits just in case before returning to the first one which a woman tried to unlock for us. Finally it was decided that we would be leaving via a few staircases, not so good news but we would leave at last! The hotel was across the street and soon we were sleeping YAY! Today we slept in til 9:30 then had breakfast at the hotel before taking the train to Serbia. I am now in Bachka Topola at a Calvary Chapel church where I will be spending three days.

I am feeling the pressure of not knowing any Serbian at all! I haven't learned the Cyrillic Alphabet yet so it is difficult to differentiate sounds yet,thus making it hard to repeat names. Most of the people I am staying with in the church in Bachka Topola speak English well. It is a stretch to be away from Steve and Tanja and also alone still, since my teammates won't arrive until Sunday. I am really desiring some normalcy, but I know that being flexible now will prepare me for camps.

Please pray for language learning, that I would trust God with the details of the next few weeks and for a good team building time when Ross and Andy arrive from Ireland.

Praise God that Steve and Tanja were able to meet four students on the train and invite them to camp. :) I feel totally comfortable with Steve and Tanja. The Serbs I have met are very sweet and welcoming. One girl even kissed me on the cheek as she left saying in Serbian "See, she is my new friend." :)

I will post soon about our training in Czech. It was such a rich experience.

Amazing Race

Well, I've made it. As the fifty or so summer interns got off of the plane we loaded up our checked baggage and were sent on an Amazing Race. This Amazing race

beats jet lag...because you don't have time to stop and be tired.
gets you acquainted with E. Europe...we interacted with many many people as we asked for directions
and most importantly, brought each member of each team to the end of themselves. In this place we were able to learn a lot about our weaknesses and potential places of conflict on our teams as well as bond. It was quite the experience!! I really could never explain it all, but here are a few highlights:

*We traveled around, found clues, and visited in four different countries over the three days. We had clues to find and tasks to accomplish in Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Budapest, Hungary and in the Eastern side of Czech.
*We got to see, at least as we were racing by, many beautiful sites. I forget how beautiful and old the architecture is in Europe.
*We got to bond and interact with many other teams as we helped them along during the race or bonded over difficult challenges. (It took our team two hours of walking to find four pictures on one clue!!)
*It was so cool that Johnny and Brooke Stevens, and many helpers, planned this race just for us.

Some of the tasks we had to do included:

*Drinking a VERY Spicy pepper soup at a Gypsy restaurant. *Scanning an amusement park for the locations of a whole page of pictures taken there *Asking for directions from many strangers and learning to navigate the transportation system of many foreign cities. *Running through a maze (a real garden maze of green hedges) at the Austrian Palace *Getting a group of strangers to drink cups of a soft drink until it was gone (some French tourists helped us out). *Balancing a bat on your palm and passing it to your team members until you made it around an entire circle (See Pictures)

Pictures to come...