First of all, a huge thank you to all of you who are “sending” this team with your prayers and financial support. Our ministry in Slovakia truly would not be possible without you. 

After almost an entire day of travelling, our team of 13 (11 from America, 2 from Ukraine) finally arrived Friday evening to the MEMC Icthys Center in Velky Slavkov, our home for the next week. Praise God for relatively uneventful travel and no lost luggage.

After a proper night’s sleep, our Slovak and German partners arrived Saturday morning. Several of our Slovak partners are dear friends who we have been working with for years (including one who was in Angela’s class at an English Bible Camp 8 years ago!), but some are new, and we have some new Americans on our team as well, so we spent most of Saturday getting to know each other and preparing to work together for the week ahead. 

Sunday morning we worshipped with the congregation of a long-time friend and ministry partner Pastor Miro Maťo, in the nearby village of Gerlachov, where David preached on “the woman at the well” from John 4, and the team shared the song “Mighty to Save” with the chorus sung in Slovak. 

Sunday afternoon 46 teenage campers arrived (including a group that drove down from Latvia), and the real party finally got started! We welcomed everyone with various games, shared dinner together, and held our first large group session during which we got to know each other, worshipped together through song, introduced the themes of the week, etc.

Our curriculum this week is titled “Full-filled”, using the metaphor of our hearts being like a jar of water, starting with the Fall and why we feel empty, how the things of this world that we try to fill our hearts with really don’t satisfy, then Jesus’s offer of living water, and finally overflowing with the Spirit.

We are now about 24 hours into camp, and it feels like we picked up right where we left off last year. Already relationships are forming and deepening, and the youth are excited and engaged. It is always such a blessing to unite believers from across the world (Slovakia, Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, America) to experience a taste of the international universal Church, and to get to worship the Lord together in all our various languages, and we pray this is a witness to those here who do not yet believe. 

Please pray for health and energy for our team and for a sweet time with the youth this week. More updates to come soon!