Friday

A full day of visits and action! Equipped now with all of the flyers and invitations for the planned summer English Camp, we set about visiting five different schools in town. We are focusing this year strictly on teens from fourteen to eighteen so we avoided the lower levels of instruction. At each school, we first met with the Principal and spoke of our plans to offer a Christian based time of English instruction for their interested students during the summer vacation. Without exception they were all enthusiastic about our offer and authorized the posting of our flyers on their bulletin boards. They allowed us to meet with their English instructors. All of the teachers gave us assurance that they would encourage their students to attend our introductory assemblies as well as the actual two week summer gathering. At one point one of the teachers asked why we couldn't do something comparable for them since many of them had no real experience with the spoken aspects of the language. Several of them, former Russian teachers, learned the language through self-study and textbooks to keep from losing their jobs after the fall of the Iron Curtain! Did some hear us say, "Don't throw us in the briar patch!"? We leapt at the thought of inviting all of the English teachers to periodic evenings of "English Encounters" to be held at the local church, just for them... ;~)

By mid-afternoon we were at the train station meeting for the first time a single young missionary who has been in the country for three years and had never truly addressed how to properly handle financial support for his ministry or how to legally remain in the country to serve the needs of this nation. We agreed to spend an afternoon counseling and guiding him to a path of righteousness before the IRS and the Czech government. Our prayer is that our time together helped him realize a long-term call to work in this country. We trust it has since, to date, we've not had any follow up requests for clarification. While in our back yard, we put him to work visiting a Kid's Klub that had been established in a local elementary school following a Service Project we were involved with. For a week we had a large team come in and clear the underbrush from a park adjacent to the school. It had become a hangout and cover for drug users. At the same time, the team constructed an elaborate set of playground equipment for the use of the school and the adjoining community. With the favor that project brought, the local church was given access to the school for an after school Christian Kid's Klub. We are regular visitors there and took our young guest along to help us make masks for a coming masquerade Party and to participate in an unruly kareoke session. What fun... Sometime around 9 PM we took our guest back to his train and spent the remainder of the evening sipping refreshments and providing relaxed fellowship for our young pastor and his wife.