aboveground Missions

aboveground will be traveling to the Czech Republic July 9 - 22nd to serve in English camps for Czech students.

July 14

I apologize for taking so long to update all of you. It has been difficult with our extremely packed schedule to communicate much. We had two full days in Prague to tour and do some leadership training before setting out to Vysoke Myto.

We arrived early Thursday morning and very quickly started our walking tour of Prague. Everyone gets a little upset at me because they want to sleep, but it's important to stay up all day so we acclimate to the time change. So we walk, and walk, and walk. But it's all worth it as we stroll through Old Town Square past the statue of Jan Hus (look him up on wikipedia), and stare up at the two towers that inspired the castle at Disney World. We eventually make our way across the Charles Bridge (one of the most famous in the world), and up the hill to Prague Castle (the largest castle complex in the world). Then it's back down the other side of the hill, which usually turns out to be more difficult than the trip up the hill because of the way the steps are built.

Exhausted, we eventually made our way back to the hotel for a short time of worship and a leadership challenge. Everyone quite literally, fell into bed by 9:30. We were up early on Friday for another day of touring which gave all of us an opportunity to explore the parts of the city that stuck out to us the day before. We met up again for lunch and for the opportunity to walk through the Communist Museum. It helped each of us to gain a better understanding of Czech history and helped the city come alive as we walked through Weceslache Square (I'm sure I didn't spell it right and I'm sure you probably can't pronounce it anyway) where over 100,000 Czechs chanted "We want a new government" in November of 1989 which eventually led to the fall of Communism in Czech.

While this was all going on we were praying for Vlada the Czech youth pastor we work with because he was spending Thursday and Friday going to doctors to find out if he would be able to lead our camp or not. The doctors still are not sure what he had, but they were certain he wasn't sick anymore on Friday morning after we had been praying for him for the last 12 hours! Vlada is now doing quite well and at this very moment is playing "Settlers of Katan" with a group of people in the next room.

Saturday morning we traveled by train to Vysoke Myto, which is where the church we work with is located. We spent the day after the 2 hour train ride touring the town and spent the evening in host homes. Sunday we attended church and shortly-there-after, hopped on a bus for camp.

Camp started yesterday afternoon with assessment tests to find out which class each student would be in. Our assessment team worked very hard to test each student and to divide them into classrooms. After a typical Czech dinner of beef and dumplings (one of my personal favorites!!!), we had our first evening session. We used the session to try to break the ice with the Czech students. Czechs are very nice people, but are very closed at first. It will likely take until tuesday evening or wednesday afternoon until they completely warm up to us. Although, having been here a year ago with some of the same students there are a few who we already know, so this is extremely helpful to those of us who were on the trip last year.

We began our classes this morning. The goal is not so much to teach them grammar, they learn that at school, but to give them opportunities to stretch their english in conversation. Each classroom seemed to go quite well, and each of us learned something better to do tomorrow. We spent the afternoon playing board games with them while it rained, while some of the guys taught Czechs to play football.

Tonight we had our second evening session. Taylor O'Brien, Dan Rousseau, and Aaron Smith along with some Czechs have been leading the music which every student seems to really enjoy! Rhonda has been leading the motions for our camp song, which our team thinks is cheezy (the song, not Rhonda, we love Rhonda!!!!!) every year, but the Czechs love it, which makes it really fun for all of us.

Each evening concludes with small group discussion. This is possibly the most difficult part of the camp. As I mentioned the Czechs are very closed at first, so it is difficult to get them to open up to just about any question, especially if they have to answer in english. If we learned anything from last year it is that we must introduce God into our conversations very slowly. This is a challenge for our students because they feel like they are not connecting with the Czechs, so I keep reminding them to be patient and to keep eating meals with them and to keep spending time with them outside of class and eventually they will open up.

Please pray that we would be able to build trust with the Czech students and that God would open doors for us to share his love for them.

Ken Lippold
Director College/Career Ministries
First Baptist Church of Geneva, IL