Camp Team Meetings

One of the things you may have noticed if you’ve been following my “Photo Friday” posts is that I have been doing quite a lot of travelling this month. In fact, as I sit down to do my expenses for October I will be submitting receipts in six different currencies!

So, why have I been doing so much travelling?

Well, my role is to serve the camp ministry of Josiah Venture and those over-one-hundred camps happen in lots of countries! And in those countries there are people who organise, lead and serve those camps – both national missionaries and second-culture missionaries.

Most camps last a week or less but the work for them happens all year round as people recruit and prepare short term teams, work with national churches, promote camps to young people, recruit and prepare interns, prepare finances, budgets and resources… and then follow up with all those people!

So, we’ve been meeting with the camp teams of countries to go through what they’re doing throughout the year and to discover how we can best encourage and support them.

So far we have had these 4-6 hour long meetings with Czech, Poland, Latvia and Estonia and are scheduled to go to Slovenia in early December.

It has been such a joy to meet with these people who are passionately serving God and who are passionate about reaching the youth of these nations for Christ. And it has been so exciting to sit and listen to stories of how God is moving through these camps and drawing people to Himself. 

If you would like to know more about these countries you’ll find out some information about them and their ministry outlook by clicking on their profiles on the JV website. 

S-Team Planning

My role within Josiah Venture is on "S-Team".  S-Team stands for "Specialities Team" - we are the team that serve the special ministries of JV - English Camps, Fusion and Edge.   These are some of the major "pathways" that we use to reach young people in central and eastern Europe.

English Camps are the ministry I'm most familiar with, I served at my first English camp in 2007!  Fusion is the name given to rock choirs and performing arts groups that meet weekly - this is a newer ministry and is being launched in more JV countries as it grows.  And Edge is our brand new sports' ministry - it's starting with football but that may grow too!  You can read more about English camps and Fusion here, and I hope to write more about all three as I continue to get to know them all better!

On Wednesday I left Prague to travel to Cesky Tesin (where I'll be living) and on Thursday and Friday I was at the S-Team planning retreat at Selah.  Selah, the building in the photo above, is JV's retreat centre, is up in the mountains not far from our main offices.  I hope to share more about Selah in the future too, as it's got a pretty cool story!

Back to the planning meeting...  it was so exciting to join with S-Team and some other JV missionaries as we thought through the next two years of the different ministries - what's going on right now, where we think they should be going and what needs to be done.  

After those two days the to-do lists are long - the need of this part of the world is huge but God is a God who can do more than we could ever ask or imagine, and His love for the young people of these countries is also beyond what we can imagine.  

So in the midst of long to-do lists, it is so amazing to be here and to be part of God's movement in central and eastern Europe.  Sitting in that meeting I again felt that this is what I was made for, this is what God has called me to.  

And this week I'm back in Czech class, where I will be until the end of this month as I try to get a jump start in the language that God has also called me to, even if it's a little harder! 

Thank you for your partnership in this work!