Camps happening this week!

These posts are happening each Monday this summer to invite you to pray with us for the camps happening this week! 

This summer we will have one hundred and twenty two camps across our thirteen countries! We have one hundred and five interns serving with us for three months, and over one thousand people serving on short term teams. For each camp, we'll be partnering with a local church to put on an English, sports, European, or music camp. And young people from the town, city, or area will be invited to come along, to learn English or grow in their football skills, or perform in a rock-pop choir, and they'll hear the Gospel and be invited to respond. 

The theme for our camps this year is SEEN and we'll spend the week looking at how people are seen by Jesus. Each night we will look at a different encounter Jesus has with someone in the Bible and what that tells us about him, and about us. We're praying boldly that eight hundred and fifty young people will put their faith in Jesus this year. And we're praying that they, and the others at camp, will get plugged into the local church where they'll be discipled to be disciples who make disciples who make disciples. 

Please pray with us for the camps that are happening this week - 

• for the local church: that they will build relationships with young people from their community and share the Gospel, and that they'll be able to follow up with these students well
• for the interns and short term teams: that God will use them powerfully as they serve the local churches here, and that God would call some of them to this ministry full time!
• for students: that God would powerfully draw many to themselves, and that when they go home they would be excited about growing in Christ.

This week the camps that are happening are:

• one in Latvia
• five in Poland
• one in Hungary
• four in Slovenia
• one in Croatia 

If you'd like to get a feel for our camps check out this video:

Josiah Venture - Camps Ministry from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

Camps happening this week!

These posts are happening each Monday this summer to invite you to pray with us for the camps happening this week! 

This summer we will have one hundred and twenty two camps across our thirteen countries! We have one hundred and five interns serving with us for three months, and over one thousand people serving on short term teams. For each camp, we'll be partnering with a local church to put on an English, sports, European, or music camp. And young people from the town, city, or area will be invited to come along, to learn English or grow in their football skills, or perform in a rock-pop choir, and they'll hear the Gospel and be invited to respond. 

The theme for our camps this year is SEEN and we'll spend the week looking at how people are seen by Jesus. Each night we will look at a different encounter Jesus has with someone in the Bible and what that tells us about him, and about us. We're praying boldly that eight hundred and fifty young people will put their faith in Jesus this year. And we're praying that they, and the others at camp, will get plugged into the local church where they'll be discipled to be disciples who make disciples who make disciples. 

Please pray with us for the camps that are happening this week - 

• for the local church: that they will build relationships with young people from their community and share the Gospel, and that they'll be able to follow up with these students well
• for the interns and short term teams: that God will use them powerfully as they serve the local churches here, and that God would call some of them to this ministry full time!
• for students: that God would powerfully draw many to themselves, and that when they go home they would be excited about growing in Christ.

This week the camps that are happening are:

• one in Serbia
• one in Bulgaria

If you'd like to get a feel for our camps check out this video:

Josiah Venture - Camps Ministry from Josiah Venture on Vimeo.

Women's Retreat

In March I spent a few days in a beautiful little town in Austria with these women - the Josiah Venture second culture women! There were fifty-six of us gathered for our retreat, that happens like this once every three years.

You might be wondering what a second culture woman is? We all serve in a culture outside our home culture (or some of the women who do live in their home culture are married to Americans). There were quite a few nations represented and it was a joy to spend those four days together!

There are a lot of losses in this missionary, cross-cultural life that are absolutely worth it - we are by grace compelled to live our lives in the nations God has called us to, and He and his Gospel are so worth it. But it also means that there are pieces of my life that don't make sense except to those who find themselves in similar places.

And there is so much beauty and depth in these friendships, even though we don't get to see each other very often, because of the loudness with which we can declare "ME TOO" when we talk about the things that we're rejoicing in, finding hard, choosing faith for, and laughing about. And I'm increasingly convinced that a sense of humour is just simply necessary for this cross-cultural life.

I'm so thankful to belong to an organisation, to a family, that believes so strongly in caring for its missionaries well. And this includes this once-every-three years international women's retreat (the other two years we have other retreats specific to our country or marriage retreat or Israel for the singles last year).

And what did we do for those four days? Apart from linger over meals, rest, and nap? Well, the theme of our retreat was prayer. And we didn't really have teaching on prayer - we simply prayed!

This year Josiah Venture has an online prayer room and we found ourselves praying through that hour three times during our time together. And then we prayed in various ways and in various groups.

There was time of confession and time of praying boldly for one another. There was a lot of space for adoration - and we were beautifully led in worship during our time by someone who flew in from the States to serve us in this way. There was time to celebrate and rejoice in what God has done (and we even had balloons!). And we of course had time to individually sit before God and hear from Him.

I am so grateful for this time and retreat - it was a really refreshing time and I returned home from that beautiful place so encouraged and emboldened for this crazy, good life God has called me to. 

Zimowisko

In early March, when there was still a little snow on the ground, we had our annual youth retreat. It's called Zimowisko which is actually a Polish word related to winter. We go to the same chata each year - a little building tucked into a mountain that was built by one of the families in church for youth retreats and Sunday school camps. 

It was so good to have this time together. We played silly games, and had to eat dinner with both our wrists are tied to our neighbours' wrists (it makes it rather complicated to eat spaghetti). We had a hike on the Saturday and a lot of good conversations on the journey. 

We also had some really beautiful times of worship throughout the weekend. And quite a few people gave their testimonies of how they came to Christ and how they've grown in Him - and most of the testimonies were from people who are the first believer in their families for quite a few generations. Our theme for the weekend was growth - what does it mean to grow in Christ, to grow spiritually? Why should we want to grow and how do we do it? 

I'm so thankful that I can be a part of this youth ministry, and know these incredible young people who are passionate about their Saviour, growing in Him and sharing this Good News with those they love.

Why we do camps

On the Monday before I headed to Prague my friend and teammate Kelly from Poland arrived at my flat and we headed to the office. So part of my day was spent with this view – Ondra recording Kelly for an online training course for those giving the talks at our camps this year.

As we were filming, preparing what would be said, and discussing what we most wanted to communicate, it reminded me again why I am here and why it is such a privilege to join this ministry.

In serving camps internationally I am usually juggling details, keeping track of things, and helping to deliver materials and resources to do camp well. But doing camp well is in no way the end goal. In doing camp well, by weaving the theme throughout all the different elements of the week, and creating excellent resources to be used, we create a beautiful environment in which the gospel is clearly presented and students get to experience the love of Christ.

And we have an incredible opportunity as we come alongside local churches to empower their youth groups to reach their friends. Believing students invite their friends to camp and advertise in local schools knowing that at camp their friends will benefit from an excellent English, sport, or music programme, and they will hear about a God who loves them and wants to have a personal relationship with them.

This year we are praying that we will do one hundred and thirty camps across our thirteen countries. Excellent talks have been written for each evening that beautifully communicate the gospel. We’re praying that each student hears the gospel individually and is personally challenged to follow Christ, and we’re training our short term teams and interns in how to do that well.

We’re so aware that the horse is prepared for battle but the victory belongs to the Lord, and we’re boldly asking Him to already be powerfully at work in the lives and hearts of the students who will be at camp this summer. We’re asking Him to draw many to Himself, and that they will become faithful disciples who make disciples in these nations. All for his glory.

A Czech Intensive in Prague!

I've spent much of the last two weeks with this view as I do my Czech intensive in Prague! Each morning from 9.30 until 12.30 has found me wrestling with grammar, pronunciation and new words. It has been so hard and so great at the exact same time. 

Our teacher has been really wonderful. In the picture above are the various forms of him, it, her, and them for the different cases. This is something I've studied multiple times with different teachers but today it seemed to make sense! Not only do you need to just learn all those variations and remember which case they are, but you also need to remember all the verbs and prepositions that lead to each of the cases.

The teacher has also been so kind to teach Kristin and I for an extra ten or fifteen minutes after class each day. There are some holes in our Czech - things we should have learnt at an earlier stage but did not, or did not learn it in a way that we still use. I think that one of the biggest wins of this fortnight has been learning tools that will help me continue to learn and use this language well.

We've also learnt some hilarious things. For example, most of Czech has as a particular way of speaking Czech, except the part where I live. In Silesia, the region I call home, we speak Czech the way it is written. In other parts of Czech, however, they shorten the pronunciation of words, and change endings, and add a v in front of the letter o. Living beside the Polish border comes with its own challenges but I am so glad we speak standard Czech there!

This was definitely one of the funniest exercises of the class - matching the sound to the animal, because you forget that some things don't correlate exactly and while I find it difficult to imagine a frog making a "kva, kva" sound, it doesn't necessarily "ribbet" either. By the way, it's the bear that goes "brum, brum" in the photo above.

Honestly, during the first week of the course I was feeling rather discouraged. The intermediate level of language learning is a long one and progress seems slow. I have really struggled with the declension side of Czech, so the first few days felt overwhelming. One of the things I've had to remind myself of is the progress that I have made, and that I am successful in my every day life. Sure, none of it is perfect and I can't always communicate exactly how I want to but there is success in being able to understand sermons, be in a small group, and navigate everyday life in a foreign country and language. 

With just one class left tomorrow I am feeling mostly encouraged - this language may in fact be learnable. The road to complete fluency is a long one, but God has called me to this language as much as He has called me to this country and to serve Him here. I am so thankful that I was able to take these two weeks to be in Prague and to study, and for the progress I've made. And I'm excited to jump back into "regular life" and hopefully use what I've learnt and continue to make progress!

On a train through the Czech Republic

This coming summer will mark a decade since my first trip to the Czech Republic and I will also celebrate four years of calling this country home. When I was writing my first support letter, writing about what God had called me to and inviting people to partner in His work, I remember going through all my photos of the five times I’d been in Czech up until that point. I also went through all the photos I’d been tagged in on Facebook by teammates, hoping to find photos that communicated the need for and the beauty of the ministry I’d be joining.

And do you know what I found? So many photos of me sleeping, mostly on trains or buses, taken by teammates that I’d no doubt snapped sleeping earlier. None of those photos made the cut to go in the support letter, and I’m not going to post any of them here.

But I have a lot of memories of those summer trains – and they’re mostly fond. Running for trains to take us to short term team training, and crossing the country to travel to the camp location. And the sticky summer heat, the gentle rocking of the train, and the squeaks and squeals as it came to a stop at another unpronounceable station.

I don’t often find myself on a train now that I live here, as it is usually more convenient to travel by car, but I’m on one today. I’m heading across the country to Prague, a journey that takes four hours from the little town I call home. And I could be working or reading but I can’t stop staring out the window.

It helps that, although we’ve had a couple of days where the temperature has been above zero, most of the countryside is still snowy. And when I say that it looks like Narnia part of the movie was filmed here, so you can imagine. There are areas of beautiful tall trees, surrounded with snow.

There are long stretches where we’re going fast, 159km/hour according to the sign at the end of the carriage, and buzzing through the landscape that appears rather monochrome with the white snow, black trees, and grey sky. Every so often another train passes us.

We frequently pass little towns and villages, where there is smoke coming out of chimneys and people going about their days. Often the tallest building in those places is the church building and I wonder if it’s still being used, how many people gather there, and what the neighbours think about the building beside them.

Along the way we’ve also passed through bigger cities. This is a fast train so we stopped in only a couple of them to pick up new people. The cities are often announced by the factories we pass on the way in, and the freight trains ready to transport materials.

When we’re out in the countryside it is quieter and I spotted some deer in the fields. There are also little chatas, little huts, by rivers or with little gardens, that are mostly used in the summer months.

When we pass through train stations I can now pronounce their names, usually pretty well, and some of them are even familiar places where I have been or have friends. And at the train station after I bought my ticket I picked up a food magazine to read on the journey. The language that was once amusing and beyond all understanding now also feels familiar as I work my way towards fluency.

I am so thankful for this little country that I get to call home. I’m thankful for all the little ways it feels familiar and I am praying that this fortnight, as I attend a Czech intensive, that I grow in my ability to communicate with people here.