Every year when our
summer interns arrive in Europe they step off the plane or out of the car to
start the Amazing Race for the first three days of their internship. It is
modelled on the Amazing Race TV show where teams do crazy challenges and
receive clues that lead them to their next challenge.
The year I led an intern
team in Czech the Race was mainly in Poland and a little in Czech. Last year we
raced in Ukraine. This year the Race was entirely in Slovenia.
So, on Tuesday morning
twenty-five people left Cesky Tesin for Slovenia – people from Czech, Poland,
Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine had travelled to Cesky Tesin the night before and
stayed at my flat and the Yormans’ house. On Tuesday night we had a leaders’
meeting that outlined the next three days.
On Wednesday morning a
couple of us got up really early to drive to Munich to pick up the interns and
get them on the bus to Slovenia. Thankfully we don’t lose anyone… although that
might have been a real fear at one point until we found out the bus actually
had fifty-two seats, not fifty like we’d been told.
I’ll pause here to say
that I have now driven in Germany, Austria and Slovenia. And Austria is
stunning to drive through – the Alps were filled with fog and there are lots of
tunnels, including a 7km long one that connects Austria and Slovenia.
The race started at Lake
Bled. Our nineteen teams started with a challenge that involved one person
swimming to retrieve a key to open a lock. They then had to row, as a team,
over to the island in Lake Bled where several other challenges awaited them.
My station on that first
day was to wait at the local train station for the teams and to ensure they all
got on trains to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The first team showed up
forty minutes before the train did and they were super excited to be the only team
there. So of course two minutes before the train showed up a bus holding the
other eighteen teams arrived. Watching nineteen teams, primarily composed of
Americans, get on one tiny train at a quiet train station was quite the sight,
and the locals laughed a lot.
There were more
challenges waiting for them that night in Ljubljana. One was learning the
Slovene national anthem! They had to find a local to teach it to them and then
the team sang it on the main square.
The next day we were in
Ljubljana the whole day. It is a beautiful city. It doesn’t feel like a capital
city at all and there are lots of cute little shops and many beautiful
bicycles.
My first station that
day was at the castle, which is on the top of a hill in the city. Teams were
given a little Lego model and the pieces necessary to make it. Only one person
in the team could see the model and only they could speak. They had to describe
it to the rest of their team. I did this challenge in Krakow and it is really
good at making you think about communication.
Other highlights from
day two: there is a bridge in Ljubljana where people jump off into the river
and one person from every team had to do that. Teams had thirty minutes to find
items that started with every letter of the Slovene alphabet.. in Slovene. This
was a very fun station to be at!
The teams also had to
eat horseburger. The place is actually a really popular little place but the
burgers were quite big and a lot of teams struggled here. There was some
throw-up. I did try horseburger and, honestly, it doesn’t taste anything
different from a hamburger.
One of my favourites
from this day was something that was set up to be a culture challenge – teams
were sent to Slovene homes and were told to ask questions and learn about the
culture. Every year there is a food challenge and, having eaten the
horseburger, teams thought they were in the clear. But while they were in homes
they were served the Czech speciality of tlačenka… It is horrible. But they
were in homes so they had to be polite. I loved this challenge because this is
what a summer, and life, in Europe involves – being in homes with people who
don’t speak a lot of English and who serve you something that you have to eat,
regardless of how you feel about it.
On the last day we got
up early to head to Maribor – the interns were on the train and some of us were
driving. It was fun to be back in Maribor, where I’d been last December for a
meeting.
The only station I was
responsible for that morning was at the top of a very large hill, called
Calvary Hill. There were four hundred or so very steep stairs. It was funny
when some of the interns arrived up there, rather frustrated at having climbed
all those stairs, and I explained that we’d had to climb them too.
Some intern teams
received poor directions from locals – although the clue specifically directed
them up the many stairs, a lot of locals sent them up the other side of the
hill. This meant it took teams a while to find us and some climbed the mountain
more than once.
When they got to us they
were very thankful to learn they had to spend ten minutes at the top of the
hill and they were given a short devotion to reflect on where they get their
energy from, and they were given the opportunity to have communion.
The rest of the day for
them involved learning a traditional Slovene dance, interviewing young people
about what they think about God, identifying all fourteen of the JV countries
and their languages.
The first team to cross
the finish line was Romania!
 |
| Crossing the finish line! |
The reason we do the
Amazing Race is to give these multicultural teams an opportunity to meet and
bond. There’s something about throwing up horseburger together or rowing across
a lake that gives you a shared experience that really helps unite the teams. It
also gives the teams, and especially their leaders, the chance to see the
strengths and weaknesses of their teams. And there are also times of conflict
on the team that give the teams the chance to work through things.
Our interns did so well
on the Amazing Race, it was a joy to serve them in it. And from Maribor we all
hopped into cars and a bus to head north to Czech, to Malenovice, to Intern
Training!
