What I’ve learned since being home……  some of it.

During my freshman year of college, I did a bible study on this book by John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating.  In the book, Stasi talks about a woman’s desire to be loved and to love.  She talks about personally falling in love with God.  At least, that’s what I took from it.  So ever since then, I realized that I too wanted that for myself.  I wanted to be able to say that I, Leila Baldwin, am passionate about my relationship with Jesus and completely in love.  I don’t think it hit me until I got back, but it sure enough hit me.  I had finally gotten my answered prayer.

When I got back in the country I realized that God had woo-ed me.  He swept me off of my feet and carried me through every single open door.  Let me elaborate on those doors a little.

• Door 1: Finances.  I know that I have talked about this a lot in my first ever blog of my whole life.  But it’s important.  I had to raise $4,350.  I don’t care who you are or what your salary is, that’s a lot!  The deadline was May 1.  Obviously my deadline was met, but you might not know how.  I think it was the day before my deadline and I got a phone call from my mom.  Apparently the bible study, at Bennetts Point at Good Samaratan Church, raised over $700.  (My sincerest apologies, but I can’t remember the exact amount.)  I got my finances in the day that they were due.  My prayer was that God would carry me through that process and if it was his will then he would supply.  Thanks again to those in the bible study!
• Door 2:  Complete Safety.  I guess there is always something in the back of your mind when you’re preparing for a big, long trip that screams danger.  I don’t know it was somewhere between that article on people trafficking (which in a short definition is stealing people for sweatshops) and catnapping in the airport with every one of my belongings under me, God gave me peace that I was completely safe.  There really was never scared moment.  There were no hard times in which I thought the world was going to end.  I felt safer there by myself than I do sometimes walking around campus.
• Door 3:  Complete Safety for my family and friends.  So one of my greatest friends decided this summer she would go to South Africa.  Another friend moved to NYC to conquer the city as a really good graphic designer.  Another great friend of mine studied for a month in Barcelona.  My family is crazy, and sometimes I would worry about their safety for long periods of time.  Every single person that I left behind was here in one piece when I got back.  My family picked me up at the airport, in one beautiful piece.  The best Grandma ever waited till I was home to have a heart attack.  In this area, I am really thankful of God’s timing.  I was able to get home and kiss and love and talk to and hug all my favorite people.  It’s great being in love with God!

So that’s a few little things on one big movement that took place in me.  I hope it all makes sense, I started this a week or so ago, then came back to it a few times.

***and update on my grandma Annie:  She’s doing pretty well.  She’s always been a strong lady. They took her off the venilator on Thursday(?).. She’s moving around, sitting in chairs and jumping on beds.  Ok so she’s not jumping on beds, but she is doing well.  The last I heard yesterday, was that she’s moving into a room, and out of the ICU!  Thanks to those of you who have called or come by the hospital.  Nana has really love hearing about all of her biggest fans who have stopped by.***

LEVICE KECY

Levice was our last camp and it was the most difficult for us.  Right before the camp we had to pack up all of our things for the summer and get them ready to leave for the States because we were stopping for a brief moment from Poland to Austria to get them.  I think this task was the worst because I packed my brain in my suitcase and sent it to America.  Of course this is all figuritievely speaking because there is no way that I could really pack my brain and send it ahead of me by two weeks.  But I had the hardest time focusing on the last camp.  It was my 3rd one in a row, that means that I had to train the American team and listen to the same 3 days of training for a 3rd time.  And then I had to try to build relationships with students and then have my heart ripped out for a 3rd time when I have to tell them good-bye.  You might can see why I had such the lack of enthusiasm.  But we prayed.  We prayed for supernatural energy and joy.  We prayed for grace and love.  We prayed for God to come to camp.  And we got it, and He came, and He answered all of the above prayers.

I guess since we invited God to camp is why the devil decided to come too.

I said earlier, we experienced a ton of Spiritual Warfare.  My idea of spiritual warfare is when you are doing something for God and all the sudden all of these things start breaking down in front of your eyes.  It can sometimes be really discouraging, can sometimes make you lose heart, and above all can sometimes make you question the intentions of yourself, your friends, and God.  That might be confusing so I’ll explain what happened in list form.  If all of these things had happened individually, I’m not sure I would call it Spiritual Warfare.  (I also haven’t been through seminary and I am not a professional on the spiritual side of things, so please don’t quote my definition, and if you disagree I would love to hear your opinion.  just a disclaimer.)

1. A few days before the Americans were scheduled to land in Europe, we found out that their leader couldn’t make the trip on doctor’s orders due to a medical condition.  So this group of high school students, lead by his wife, were now coming over without their encourager, boss, and friend.  He was also supposed to give a talk on the “sin night”.
2. I guess it was a week or so prior to camp, the music/worship leader’s car was stolen along with his laptop and several other life necessities.  Did I mention the car was brand new?  So now he’s having to make payments on a car that he doesn’t have and still needs to try to buy a new one.  He and his family was completely distraught.
3. After we arrived at the camp site, several team members got sick.  My leader came down with something like the flu.  A ton of kids from the American team were throwing up or laid out with a cold.
4. The day of the Sin talk or the Body and Soul day- which is a big deal, because it sets up for the presentation of the Gospel- we had an all day hike to Oravsky Castle.  Since we were on the hike all day, they forgot to find an MC for the evening program.  So about an hour before the program they asked me to MC with Laci the husband of the camp director.  I was Soul, Soul Mate, and he was Buddy, Buddy Body.  Those were our names.  God definitely provided us with energy and ideas to make it work.
5. So like I said in #1, the team leader was suppose to give the talk, but he couldn’t make it.  Then the talk was passed on to his intern who came on the trip, who didn’t realize that the camp wasn’t going to be all about Jesus, and wasn’t sure how to speak to non-believers in the way Josiah Venture suggests.  So he passed the talk onto Laura, my team leader.  She got sick with the flu-like-junk the day before the sin talk.  So Jennifer took the load.  Jennifer is a woman in Slovakia who just finished Seminary for Christian Education.  She went to SK to check it out to move over there.  She is also a perfectionist, and went nuts because she didn’t have time to make her talk perfect.  The beautiful part about God’s will is, He makes things perfect.  Her talk was probably one of the best ones at the end of the week.
6. Laci the day before the all day hike was helping someone overcome their fear of bridges by chasing her over the bridge like a gorilla.  While running full speed over the bridge his foot collided with a metal bar.  They took him to a doctor and found out it was broken.
7. So the day of the gospel talk, this huge group of kids came into our eating room.  Apparently the hotel had double book the place and was now informing us that all of our meals had to be pushed back and they tried to kick us out of our room.  They were doing a film camp and it was called Hollywood. 
8. That same day the men were cutting some wood for the camp fire that night and threw a branch down the hill toward the log pile.  Little did they know that the branch would hit the power line on the way down.  It knocked the power out for a solid 3 hours.  Making it extremely difficult to practice for the evening program.
9. The camp director, who was giving the gospel talk that night, had a fever a couple of hours before her talk.
10. The American team performed the drama on the night of the gospel and one of the girls in the performance had an athsma attack.  She had to run out immediately and eventually was taken to the hospital.  She was fine the next day, but she hadn’t had athsma problems in several years.
11. After the gospel talk was presented, the Slovak team decided they wanted to prepare a prayer walk for the student to process their thoughts and feelings in a more intimate setting.  So they put out candles and decorated the stations.  Just after the talk, Zuzi, one of the Slovak girls, runs down to me and tells me that one of the stations had caught on fire.  I ran up and got a bottle of water and opened the door to the corridoor and I couldn’t see the end from the hall full of smoke.  We got the fire out, but it was slightly scary.

So after all was said and done after the 5th day and the gospel was presented, we had 2 students come to know about Christ, some fire damage, a hospital bill, and a testimony of how God worked in this camp.

This is Sarah, Laura, and I with the camp directors Edita and Laci.  They were GREAT!!!

My last camp was amazing and I have way too much to say to even start now, so I hope you can wait to be updated.  I have never seen so much spiritual warfare… thanks for you who were sending up prayers.

I come back on the 11th.  This Monday..  woo, I can’t even believe my summer is over.  Please expect to be informed of my trip soon, I will use my blog to hash out some of my thoughts, and my transition back to the  States.  Thanks for sticking with me and reading about my journey!  more to come soon!

The reason why my English class became the purple group.  The reason why so many people here ask my name several times when meeting me.  And the reason why my name is neato… (thanks mom!)  So that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m writing about.  But I did want to inform you of the knowledge that is continually being shared with me anytime I meet someone new, who knows Hungarian.

So this week several things happened, one of which was my 21st birthday!  I woke up and ate breakfast and was sung to and offered a birthday breakfast beer.  As tempting as it sounded at 8am… I passed up the offer and ate my bread and jam.  The day continued and I was sang to, the first was a little less enthusiastic so they repeated it again with cheer and pep.  There was something so incredible about the second rendition and it made me forget that my real family wasn’t there for a moment… my slovak/american team family sufficed quite nicely during the song and for the rest of the day.  The birthday without the family wasn’t nearly as depressing as I was expecting.  At the end of the day I was given a huge slice of czech special “birthday” cake… it was certainly a tasty treat.  And thanks to everyone who sent emails and e-cards and all, those made my week!

Enough about that… let’s talk about camp!

Camp was amazing.  I taught a class.  Beginnermediate.  That’s the level where they know some basics, but still can’t hold conversation.  At the beginning, I thought they hated me.  They were a super shy bunch of kids, but by the end of the week, they were telling me they loved me and giving me bracelets and things.

Best Memory of class:  The 3 day of English has the theme of “Body and Soul”.. (at night they have a talk about certain things, so the English lesson tries to pair with the evening religious talks, this nights talk was about sin, so body and soul was an appropriate fit…)  So during the Body and Soul day, I taught them body parts, and Simon Says, and just for fun, “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”  Well ever since my Mom was a girlscout leader, she’s always made songs more fun by changing the music genre each round.  Like first round normal, second round opera…  well I took a hint from Mom, and sang it for them normal, then Opera style, then boring/monotone style.  They loved it and insisted on doing it with me, and then teaching me the Slovak version.  After class, we were talking, and one of the girls disappeared.  She had gone down immediately to sign us up for the talent show at the end of the week with our rendition of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”  It was great success and we bonded so much over this.  God is so great.  Here’s the Purple Group!

Other fun things:  The first game that we played was called Bureaucracy.  It was a game run by Slovaks and even they didn’t understand.  So you can imagine how lost I was.  I ran behind my team and made the grass whistle thing, and learned a song about Slovak boys from one of my students.  I didn’t really help my team at all, but I was present at least…

The most aggressive game I’ve ever played: HUTUTU (whotootoo, for you americans, haha)  This game is all about getting your apposing team out.  One by one people cross over into the other teams “territory” while holding their breath saying HUTUTUTUTUTUTUTUTUTU… If you touch someone while on their side, and then make it back to your side, you get them out.  But once you touch them, you’re fair game to get tackled.  This is a competitive and athletic country… so you can imagine the intimidation behind this game.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures… but I played, and didn’t get pulverized.  WOO!

I am really sad to leave Bratislava, and enter into the crazy busy last 3 weeks of my trip.  But I am excited to come home in 3 weeks.  We have one more camp.  Levice!  Pray for energy, we’re all feeling like we have colds, and are just plain tired.  Here’s a picture of the girls on my team.. (aka, all of us, except Robby the only guy.)

I probably won’t be able to post any new updates for 3 more weeks, when I’m back at home.  So look for those to come soon and I hope you are all having a great summer!  Thanks so much for your prayers and keep them coming!!!  Stayed tuned for more stories and incredible pictures!

Here’s our group picture with the camp director, Ester, and her 3 AMAZING children!!! Jakub, Jano, and Noemi…

I think that’s it. I hope you all are having a splendid summer!

This blog will probably contain several random thoughts and tidbits of information. So I hope you’ll be able to follow. Also I apologize for the lengthy Budapest story. But all of it was indeed factual and actually happened.

So here are the basic facts of the Roznava KECY English Camp:

• After we finished promoting in their schools, a rumor started that their church was a cult, because they called themselves Christians. Roznava is a small town, and most of them only recognize Catholics and Atheist and then other random “christian” religions that are actually cults. So they only had 13 students sign up for camp. And then 3 of those 13 wanted to drop out. The camp director wouldn’t allow them, and said that the deadline had passed.
• The American Team from Arkansas was the biggest American team to come over to Slovakia all summer with 17 team members. Their team leader was a visionary for Slovakia’s ministry, so their team was fully capable and amazing. Their teenagers were really encouraging, it was great.. If you add the last 2 post together, the amount of students vs. the amount of Americans (not including my intern team) meant for a lot of one on one time.
• The facility was about a mile from another camp with our fellow interns, so one of our afternoons was devoted to competitive sports against their camp. We won the Futbol and the Volley-ball tournaments. I will gladly inform you that I was not a part of either team. I have 2 more camps to go, and I would prefer to go through them without injury.
• One day of Kecy Camps are always devoted to a hike. Our camp was located near one of the prettiest hikes in all of Slovakia. It’s called Slovak Paradise. It’s a hike alongside a waterfall, fully equipped with metal ladders and wooden bridges. After the minor panic attack in the middle of a ladder, I realized the beauty and I made it to the top. It really was gorgeous, just not really what I would consider safe… haha!
• One of our games was endearingly named the Trabant Pull. A Trabant is a car. A tiny red car. Our camp leader has one, and one of his ideas for an activity at the end of the week was to have the teams push the car up the mountain beside our camp.. I say mountain, but it wasn’t that steep, mostly rocky, but still tough. So all of the teams did it, and then they made the interns do it last. We pushed that little red car up to “American Woman” by Lenny Kravitz. We didn’t win with the farthest push, we were actually last by several feet. But I would definitely say that we had the best form.
• At the beginning of camp, several of the students didn’t want to be there, and they definitely didn’t want to be initiated into our “cult.” But the best part about Kecy is the evangelism. We don’t throw the gospel at them until the middle of the week. We just get to smell like Christ. It was awesome and by the 3rd day you could see a definite transition in the students. My roommate, one of the girls who wanted to drop, by the end of the week was looking up words in her dictionary to communicate with me, and all I did was smile at her most of the time and eat with her sometimes. The interns got to see the questionnaires that the students filled out at the end of camp and one of the girls, who also didn’t want to be there and didn’t participate in any games, filled out the entire back of the questionnaire with an essay of how upset she was because she had to leave once she began to feel like she belonged somewhere. Its amazing to be able to help Jesus rock their faces off with new information on being loved and belonging and sin… so incredible.
• I completely fell in love with the camp director, Rudo, and his wife, Lenka, and their daughter, Ema. I definitely cried when they dropped us off at the train station. They were really incredible and they’re who you should pray for in Roznava (besides the students). They are in charge of the Roznava youth group we worked with and they are the ones who were attacked when all of the cult rumors began to circulate. They are amazing and stood firm… and I miss them already!!!

I think that’s all i have to say right now about KECY Roznava. There is so much more, but it is late. And if I told you everything in my blog, my arrival back home would be so much less exciting! Before I leave on the 13th I will give you so more information… so keep a look out in the next few days for more of this goodness. Later friends!

life as a school promoter: So as I may have already covered, the first part of my time here was spent going into schools and promoting camp. Well we have 3 different host cities so that means 3 stints of quality school promotion time. As much fun as that was, I am so so so glad that it’s over. I have probably been in more Slovak high schools than American high schools. During our host city visits, we had 3 days that were used for school promotions. Meaning we started in the mornings at 8am in the schools.. and ended around lunch time. Going from class to class, usually doing several classes within a school period. But of the cities didn’t even make us go to schools all 3 days. But in our last city, we had 3 full days of schools. We had to split our team and do 2 schools at once with 2 Americans at each. And we had full class periods which meant that we essentially taught the class for 45 minutes. Yay for being an awkward American! As scary and intimidating as it was.. we found great success in all of our school visits in all 3 cities. It was a great experience and I even got a job offer to teach english.

life as a camper: Camps actually start in a few days. On Saturday we leave to go to Plejsy to train the American team coming from Arkansas and the Slovak team from Roznava. And not to mention all of the Slovak Intern Teams are training their first camp teams together. (So let me elaborate on this a little… The intern teams consist of 12 loud and outgoing people that are pumped about camp. All 3 intern teams are leading 3 camps at the same time, so each of the hosts cities camp teams consist of an average of about 8 or 9 Slovaks. And then each town has one team from America coming over to help with their camp, each American team consist of an average of about 9-10 jet-lagged Americans. We will all be together to do our camp training under one roof.) The interns will be given the responsibility of teaching the camp dance, which is awesome. I am really excited about camps starting, it will be so great to meet the kids and just see the change that can happen in a week. The second camp training starts on the 13th, the day before my 21st birthday! Then our last camp training starts on the 27th, the day before my dad’s birthday. This month is going to be pretty hectic since, we have training for 3 days, camp for 7 days, follow up for 2. We literally have a camp every 2 weeks. This might be when my blogging becomes super slack. I apologize in advance.

life with the Slovaks: It’s funny because I have learned to talk slower and articulate. I have also been trying to learn some slovak, so I am more understanding of people trying to speak my language… it’s hard. Not only is there language, but Slovaks are more athletic. Athletic and really competitive. In our 3rd and final host city, Levice, they wanted to take us on a “walk” through the mountains in Nitre (not sure if that’s correct spelling). Little did we know, that this walk was a 8 or 9 hour hike. We would seriously go up one mountain, go down, and then about an hour later up on the other one. They weren’t big mountains, but they weren’t hills either. Around the 7 hour mark, we all ran out of water. Definitely made it through, and I definitely wasn’t the last one to the car at the end either. I wasn’t last at all the entire hike. Which made me feel a lot better about myself and less like a lazy American. The next day was their church family day. During church we had translation through headphones… hilarious, but I didn’t get a picture, unfortunately. But at this family day, we were asked multiple times to participate in competitive volley-ball or soccer. Luckily we escaped both my taking a 1km walk to the river. My teammate, Sarah, and I got in the water fully dressed… and bonded with their youth group. Needless to say, Levice wore my intern team out.

life as a nomad: So apparently my team is the one that travels the most. Not the tourist kind, but the host city visit kind. We have honestly had extensive train time all across Slovakia. The best part about this is the view. Slovakia is known for their castles. Some that are in good condition and in the middle of a city, some that are run-down and in the middle of the city, some just on random cliffs in the Tetras Mountains, and then some that have been in movies. Not only are the castles beautiful, but the mountains and foothills are incredible, sometimes with sunsets that make me wish that my camera was a magical one that could capture the unmeasurable beauty. My pictures just don’t do them justice. This wasn’t a sunset or one of the absolute gorgeous castles, but it was a nice one on a really pretty day!

life as a tourist: So we are given the golden opportunity to have travel days. One to go to Budapest, a couple of days in Poland, and then a few days in Vienna before our plan flies out in August. The trip to Budapest was much anticipated. For good reason I believe, because I have always heard great things about the place. Our trip really began the night before when we looked at the weather forecast online. 102 by the heat index for Budapest, not a cloud in the sky. I know some of you are thinking, “no big deal, SC’s heat index is like 10 million degrees.” please realize, they don’t have air conditioning here. So we knew that Budapest was going to be roasting hot. Awesome! Also in order to achieve optimal tourism, we had to catch a train at 6am. I am not a morning person, so early things are always a challenge. Not to mention you wake up sweaty here, so there was no way I could think cooler thoughts with a tired brain. Our tickets ended up being almost 100 bucks for 1 ticket to Budapest, it was only a 3 hour train ride, this was a pretty ridiculous price considering public trains are the main method of transport here internationally. So we arrived and ran all over the city, taking pictures, and trying to soak it all in. Around 5:15 or so we made our way back to the train station to purchase our tickets back to Bratislava in Slovakia (where we are staying). Our train was supposed to depart at 7 so we planned to get our tickets and then enjoy a coffee and relax before the train. Instead our team leader went to go get our tickets and had to wait 45 minutes without moving a step in line. Apparently they only had 2 international ticket lines open, Budapest is a huge tourist city, there should have been more than 2 lines open. And not to mention the woman at the head of the line, was getting hand-written tickets, about 10 of them, for no obvious reason. So 45 minutes later, Laura (leader) gets to the desk where a Hungarian woman tries to tell her something in hungarian, and eventually the lines of communication were managed and we got our tickets about an hour later than expected. We then boarded our train, to depart at 7. It didn’t leave until 8 due to electrical problems later down the track. So at 8, we began our 2 hour ride completely exhausted. Then when we got into Austria, we had one minute to get from our platform to the next one over to catch our train to Bratislava. We didn’t make it. As we were running up the last 3 stairs the train was briskly making its way toward our beds, without us. So we found ourselves in this middle-of-nowhere train station in Austria, with a couple of young kids, and one old man, with his shirt off, just hanging out in the station. Our train would arrive in an hour. Awesome. We tried to lighten the mood by reading german signs with an enthusiastic accent. Then it started to pour.. It was a huge thunderstorm that managed to find us in Austria. By 11, we were on our train back to Bratislava. Little did we know that the monsoon was flooding the streets of Bratislava. We found ourselves running in the rain to the flat. By this time the day was just to ridiculous to not die laughing. We ended the night with a photo shoot in our wet clothes and discussing the other possibilities that would have made the day less exciting. Good times in Budapest.

life back at home: So there is this incredible invention called Skype. I am able to talk to my family, on their computer with video and sound. Its like being in the same place except not really. Mom, Anna, and Rob are all in New Orleans right now doing missions work, and Rob took is Mac, so we were able to chat tonight. I got the absolute joy of seeing Rob, Anna, Mom, and my favorite girls in their youth group! The girls, Clair and Hannah Miller and Rachel and Sarah Snyder have been emailing me and been super encouraging since I’ve been here, so it was incredible to be able to see their pretty faces. I also got to video chat with the whole family on father’s day. Which was awesome since I couldn’t be there to celebrate with the best dad on the planet, but I was able to see him, which made things a lot easier. I miss everyone so much so it’s great to be able to see and hear. Rob is so great for letting me use his computer.. (shout out on the blog.) I’m not really homesick, but I do miss everyone way more than I miss ice and air conditioning.

I think that is pretty much it for now. Camps are about to start and am excited to see what God has to teach everyone. Please be praying for the students in the next few weeks, the leaders, and the safe travels of all the American teams. It will be a whirlwind, but I am so excited. Caute!

Okay so, here are some photos. I hope they show up. I’m new at this blog stuff. On the left we have Prague, We marched up this massive set of stairs, and this was our prize. It was just really beautiful, in my opinion!

On the right we have a picture of the almost waterfall that Katka, one of the SK Intern leaders from Czech, took us to see. Our hike was a great time to relax and soak up all the teaching in Malenovice. This was during our training. We had a great time and got to talk a little about our thoughts on the magnitude of the summer.

The one with the flowers was in Zilina. It was an absolute gorgeous day. I got to do my quiet time and this is what came out of it. The flowers were almost as perfect as the sky, and this church was just in the right spot.

This was in our first Host City, Roznava. It was a cute town with some fantastic people in it. This is the town for our first camp, and here we went into the schools to promote camps. They couple we stayed with were the volunteer youth leaders, Rudo and Lenka and their little girl, Ema. The most difficult thing about this was when I played with Ema, we couldn’t communicate. This has been the only time I have felt hindered by language. In our last afternoon there, we had some free time. This picture was taken at a park, owned by a lord or something like that, it was seriously one of the prettiest places I’ve seen in my entire life. The pictures I have don’t do it justice.

Now we are in Bratislava. We are staying in my teamleader’s flat. It’s pretty incredible and has 3 large flights of stairs. We went into the schools here, their enthusiasm was so encouraging. We also had KFC today. Apparently they have those here… It’s so exciting being here. All of the students that we have met so far seem great. I can’t wait to begin camps.

Thanks to all of you who have been faithful in your prayers. They are much needed. While in Malenovice, Dave Patty (the founder of Josiah Venture) spoke on John. One of his lessons was about the vine and the branches and how a gardener takes care of his vines. Sometimes the vine’s branches can be on the ground, sucking up the nourishment from the ground and the gardener, in order to make the plant stronger, picks it up and lets it dangle, to rely on the vine and the root for nourishment. I have been picked up to dangle and rely on my root and my nourishment giver… It’s the most enlightening experience I’ve ever had, for sure. So like I said, prayers are needed. Specifically right now, that the students in school will sign up and come to camp with an open mind. These camps are first an English camp, second a tool to minister with the Gospel. There will be atheist there and people who are apathetic or anything you could think of. They know that there will be Christian teachings in the evening. My team also, we’re having a great time, we all get along pretty well. It is 3 girls and 1 guy, pray that he gets plenty of guy time in when it’s available. Roznava, Bratislava, and Levice are the 3 host cities for our 3 camps, pray for their teams, students, and just camps in general!

I hope this will suffice for now. Feel free to email with any questions! leilalesesne@gmail.com

So I arrive on Tuesday at 12.  I only slept MAYBE 2 hours on the plane rides.. total.  As soon as we walked out of baggage claim, we were greeted by our team leaders.  About an hour or so after I arrived, we were taken off into our groups of 3-6 people and given the challenge of finding four locations on a map and basically navigating our team around Czech.  Our leaders weren’t allowed to help us.  We probably had the least competitive team in existence.  It was AWESOME.  Oh it was also kind of like a photo scavenger hunt too.

A few things and places I saw:  Skoda Auto Museum that actually had a car of Hitler’s I think (we didn’t have time to go in), the most beautiful little town called Podebrody, a naked woman, lots of castles, you catch my drift.

So anyway we found out tonight that our team ended up coming in 10th place out of 13.  We actually joined forces with the other Slovakia team and a Czech team, reuniting after over 15 years Czechoslovakia.  (.. not sure if that’s how you spell it.)

We’re now in Malenovice.  All 3 Slovak teams went bowling together to bond and such, we ate french fries and had a great time. 

The hotel that we’re in right now is on the side of a mountain over looking a village in the valley.  Sunsets here were designed specifically for our worship time in the room that sits at the top of the hill.  I’m being taken to a place that I’ve never been before (literally and figuratively), it’s actually really difficult.  I think this is going to be an amazing summer, full of that learning.

That’s it for now..  oh  I didn’t cry or get injured or make anyone cry during the race.  I won’t have a computer for a couple of weeks.  But be thinking about me and praying for all of the Interns, we’re learning a lot.

oh and if you’d like to comment, just put in your email I think, I’m not sure what it asks for, but I’m almost positive you don’t need an account.

Love you all and sorry this was scatterbrained.

Leila

I’m here in Malenovice.  The mountains, I think, western part of Czech.

Prague was beautiful!!!!

I will write a longer letter later.  Just wanted to let you know I’m GREAT.. Just exhausted!