Day Two-Our Mission

Some of you are wondering what we are doing here. We are a Bayside Junior High mission group and we will be working with Bayside missionaries - the Andersons. Our main project will be helping to lead a summer camp for Czech students. This all started after the fall of communism when a couple of students from Wheaton College came here to start an English language school. Like most European countries, learning English is very important to landing a good job and advancing in one's education. It is very attractive to learn English from Americans. And while our foreign policy may not be popular throughout the world our culture and way of life is very popular. Of course, most Americans are thought to be beautiful Californians as depicted in your average hip hop video. We are working with about 50 Czech students ages 9 to 15 who pay big dollars to attend a camp led by American teenagers. Their parents are very excited about the opportunity for their children to learn about our way of life. The organization we are working with is a Christian organization but the camp is not strictly a Christian camp. We will have the opportunity to share our faith through our lives and conversation with the students. Czech has a very long and deep religious history which was almost distroyed when the communist took over. Today there are only 17,000 evangelicals in a country of ten million. It's interesting to note that we had over 17,000 people at our Bayside Christmas Eve services this year. I'm excited to be traveling in a country of my family origin. My grandfather on my mother's side is from Bohemiah which is the eastern half of Czech. We are working in the eastern half of Czech which is known as Moravia. We will be at a camp which is only 10 miles from Poland which is where my grandmother on my father's side is from. KJ (our JR High pastor) and I are planning to go to visit Poland one day next week where we heard they have better pastries. And I hope to find perogies (little potato like dumplings) which my grandmother use to make while I was growing up. By the way, I have yet to connect with an actual internet service so I am unable to upload pictures yet. I am updating the blog with my Blackberry phone. I hope to upload pictures in the next couple of days.
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