Week 5 (and a preview of Weeks 6 and 7)!

This is our Vacation Bible School week, so from 9:00-1:00 every morning, the interns get to lead some very adorable little kids. I don't think I've ever sang "I'm In The Lord's Army" so many times in my life. Apparently, songs that involve saluting, riding horses, marching, and making artillary noises with your hands are very appealing to small children. My hand-motion making skills from camp have suddenly come in handy! I'm also suddenly remembering how tiring it is to entertain and control preschool age kids! We've really had a great time with them, though.

Tuesday night was great....Jeremy loves Christmas, so for his birthday, we threw a surprise Christmas in July party. We decorated a small tree, listened to Christmas carols, and reminisced about our favorite Christmas traditions. Joanna whipped up a full Christmas dinner, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, gravy, and some sort of yummy corn pudding. To top it all off, we had a homemade coconut birthday cake for dessert...it was the best cake I've ever eaten.

After Christmasing, we raced off to enjoy the Bohemia Jazz Festival for the second night in a row. Monday night, I was front and center to see John Scofield play (my friends and I got to be famous on the jumbotron a couple of times), and then Tuesday night, we went to see Victor Wooten, one of the best bass guitarists in the world. You can't beat listening to free live jazz as you're surrounded by gorgeous Prague architecture.

Life here is about to change yet again in a very big way. We will be leaving 6:00 AM this Saturday to work at sports camps in different villages in Prague. We are joining two teams of Dutch atheletes who work with a group called Athletes in Action, a sports ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. Michael, Will, Lindsay and I will be serving in a village about two hours from Prague called Jihlava, while Hannah and Jeremy will be working in Pribram. We'll spend our days playing sports with children and teenagers, such as volleyball, basketball, soccer, and street dance (don't ask me what street dance is, because I'm not sure yet myself....but I'm excited!). Our team is highly non-athletic, but I think the most important element of this whole experience will just be loving the kids and hanging out with them, not our athletic abilities. I'm excited to work with young people again, and I can't wait to get to know Dutch Christians and see experience a taste of that culture through my teammates. Pray for our time away from the city to be fruitful and for our teams to be quickly unified across all cultural and linguistic boundaries.

So I'll be gone until next Sunday....then we have two days in Prague, and we leave that Wednesday morning for Krakow, Poland for the rest of the week. After Poland, we'll only have one week left here. Things are really speeding up and life as we know it here is changing. I'll be away from computers for the next week, so no more blogging for a while, but please keep me and my team in your thoughts and prayers.

P.S.....the best part of my day were these two letters. I truly have wonderful friends. One beautiful homemade one from my dear friend Sarah, and another letter signed with tons of encouraging messages from all my wonderful staff and CIT friends at New Life Camp. I miss you guys!

Thanks for all the love!