Photo Friday - 29th May

So, I introduced Casey and Kristin to Eurovision and I feel like this photo sums it up - confusion and laughter. I think my favourite quote of the night goes to Casey who said "Ok, I officially declare that Europeans can no longer make fun of Americans. At all. Ever. For eternity. Eternity is a long time."

I love my church here.

Monday meant packing, packing for the Amazing Race and Intern Training. Two years of living here and lots of travelling mean I'm getting this down to a very fine art.

The helpers' meeting for the Amazing Race.

They all arrived! 110 interns plus staff (minus a couple of pieces of luggage) and the Amazing Race began!

The start of Day 2 of the Amazing Race!

After many years of running the race Team Estonia won!

The Amazing Race!

Today 110 interns arrived at Prague airport, plus lots of full-time staff, to start the JV Amazing Race 2015! This really marks the start of the summer for us and it's so exciting! Especially exciting is the THIRTY Europeans we have serving this summer! 

We have more than twenty teams racing and completing team challenges across Prague and the country this week. They'll eventually get to Malenovice before Saturday morning. 

The goal of the race is to build teams as these people land from all over - we have Americans, Canadians, Northern Irish, Scottish, and people from China, Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary... And I hope I'm not forgetting anyone! And they will be serving on teams together all summer. This gives a shared experience and allows personalities to be seen and debriefed early in the summer.

Here are some photos from the day:

Photo Friday - 22nd May

Saturday was a cleaning and organising day! I even went through all the plastic bags I had hanging around and throwing out all the ones with holes etc! It feels good to get my flat cleaned and organised before summer travels and hosting interns!

Baking cookies on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

On Monday I had a new experience - driving home from the office I was pulled over and breathalysed as part of a random check! In Czech there is a zero tolerance policy with alcohol when driving. It was 3.15pm so I'm guessing that they were trying to catch people who had had a beer at lunch. Of course, I blew a "negativni" - negative, no alcohol at all.

Tuesday was clean out day at the office! We spent most of our time cleaning out this big garage (second from the left). It felt good when it was all reorganised! 

There will be two intern girls living with me during the summer so I had to empty out my office/spare room to make it an intern bedroom! It was chaos but it's all done now. 

I'm learning to use little pockets of time in my day! I keep a daily devotional book in the pocket of my car door and I usually have these prayer journal. 

Friday night: playing banana-grams with the Yormans! I was very proud of this in my first turn during one of our games. 

Photo Friday - 15th May

T-shirt counting at conference! Each country had to count their t-shirts for camps this summer. It went so well!

Dave Patty, our president, was our speaker during conference. 

The day after conference the Hungary team stayed so we could talk through the year-long cycle of camps. They are doing their first official JV camp this summer so it was good to have this day to train them. Plus, they're a lot of fun to spend time with, and we had a particularly interesting/hilarious time with dinner in a nearby restaurant! Here we are, with Katka joining us, on the Polish side of town overlooking the Czech side.

After a busy time at conference and the Hungary training day, it was wonderful to have a day off. The Sunday of conference was Mothers' Day in America so all the women at conference were invited onto the stage to be given a flower (because we are all spiritual mothers, and some are also biological mothers). So this flower brightened up my flat for most of the week!

Receiving thank you notes are an amazing part of my job! I love the people I get to serve.

For a weird reason taking my car to the car wash seemed like a huge deal to me. So I hadn't done it, even though I'd lived here almost two years! Thankfully someone else did take pity on my car at one point last year and got it washed. But this week I took my car to the car wash! And it was no big deal except that to me it had been and I was successful! Sadly the pollen has been crazy and my black car didn't stay clean very long but, hey, small victories! 

My set up for working from home this Friday! 

Photo Friday - 8th May

This book was given to me by Julianne, my American friend, and what's more funny that the book are the annotations she made in it! 

I am really grateful for this prayer journal from here. It's been such a useful tool and has helped me faithfully persist in prayer.

A fun night that included dinner with friends! 

The camp bracelets for this year arrived today! The theme is You Are Here and those four symbols are a tool we use to share the Gospel. Six thousand of these bracelets were ordered! It's so exciting to think about the conversations they will hopefully prompt and help!

And today the camp t-shirts arrived! It was a record to have them so early and they came out so well! 

Thursday Spring Conference began, in this beautiful location. The theme this year is Family on Mission and I'm so grateful for the Josiah Venture family I get to serve alongside.

On Friday we went to a science museum in the nearest city as part of "Family Day" at conference. It was a lot of fun!

Photo Friday - 1st May

Saturday nights when my kitchen look like this are such a blessing. It means my home has been full! I had a girl over for dinner and then we had small group with lots of yummy snacks. I'm so grateful for these girls and that we get to share life together.

I love slowing down on Sundays - and eating leftovers from the dinner on Saturday night!

I'm able to run further and further so I'm exploring new parts of the trail! 

The last of the mini eggs.. it was a sad moment! 

One of the bridges connecting Czech and Poland in my town, and the one I most frequently cross on my runs.

This. This took thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Ok, not quite. But close. Czech words change endings depending on which of the seven cases applies, if it's singular or plural, if it's masculine animate, masculine inanimate, feminine or neutral.. and other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. 

Today involved a wedding! So a good excuse to wear a cute dress.