ENGLISH CAMP/SERVICE PROJECT LIBEREC AUG. 2009

This year's English Camp for the Liberec area was different. Many of our Czech English students had participated in the American Service Projects held each year around Eastertime, but only as translators. (see previous posts on Service Projects) We decided to give the Czech youth, who may not know how to speak English well enough to be a translator, the opportunity to experience a mini-service project. A team of 15 American youth and their leaders spent a week working with and sharing life with 35 Czech youth. They lived together in a dormitory in Liberec and had nightly club meetings together. During the day they worked together building a swing set, a slide, an outdoor stage and beautifying the large yard surrounding the new building bought by the Liberec JB Church as a Christian ministry center.

This ministry center will include a Mothers with Children Club who will greatly benefit from the play equipment. During the week, teams of our youth delivered over 450 flyers to mailboxes in the many apartment buildings surrounding this new center inviting our neighbors to join us in celebrating the opening of the Mothers Club and the beautiful surroundings that up to now had been an unusable eyesore in the neighborhood. With little notice over 200 people showed up. As you can see by the smiles on their faces, everyone enjoyed the clowns, music, games and play equipment.

Many of the Czech youth were younger teens that we have not had the pleasure of working with in the past, but we see a bright future ahead for them and us. They worked hard and accomplished much. And they continue to work to remodel a couple of the rooms in this center that will be dedicated to youth group activities.

This center also has a few rooms dedicated to an NGO that ministers to senior citizens. Our adult English conversation group currently meets in one of their rooms as our numbers have far outgrown the size of our living room.