Hello again! The second week of camp is well underway and things are going fairly well. Unfortunately I've caught a cold/virus so I've been doing a lot of sleeping and not so much teaching. Please pray that I'll feel better soon. My throat is sore, my sinuses are congested and I'm really tired. My head feels funny too and the meds I'm taking make me feel lightheaded so that's an experiene. The amazing thing is I'm not feeling discouraged or frustrated. Somehow I've been able to just accept things as they've come and I know that's totally God. Though I do confess I'm wondering how I'll manage another two weeks of camp. But Mark Potma did tell me that for next week I could sit out if needed. They have enough female teachers. But I don't know what I'd do with a whole week off in Prague so I'm still planning on going and just helping out where I can. Also the staff this week have been great with covering for me and making sure I'm getting rest.


This week of camp has a totally different feel to it. Things are not nearly as intense, which is great. I thought I'd be the only girl leader for 20 teen girls but thankfully that is not the case. I do have an English class with 13 teenagers but I also have a teaching partner. Its hard to come up with fresh ideas for teaching the material so prayers about that would be appreciated as well. The teens don't seem overly open but they aren't resentful either. Interacting with them is fun and so far things have just been light. They did party the first night but seem to have settled down now. Most of them know each other from previous camps.


Pork, potatoes and dumplings are definitely good but week two is not nearly as interesting as week one. And the quality isn't great either. Somehow I don't mind too much. Though I do miss having fresh veggies and salad. Realized this morning that my bed/matress which consists of 3 cushions in a bed frame with a foamy on top does indeed have a piece of cardboard or some other type of hard material sown onto the cushions. Lol! No wonder I feel like I'm sleeping on a board! But I'm sure that's the only thing holding those cushions together so I'll take it.


Its still rainy here. In the ten days we've only had about 3 days with sunshine. Makes the hills misty and beautiful but its chilly enough that they've turned on the heating. I hope this gives you a bit of a picture of my surroundings. Thank-you for your prayers. I know they are what is keeping me going!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

En Route Stories

Image
Ahoj! This is my second day in Prague. I arrived at 1 o'clock (Czech time) on Saturday afternoon. I have already had the chance to do some sight seeing and this evening I went to the local church. Sadly, the Southcity Church (which meets in an elementary school) is the only evangelical church in the Southcity side of Prague's 4th district. There is one Catholic church also but that's it. This means there are only 2 churches for 45 thousand people! Can you imagine? On the way to the service Mark Potma (missionaries I'm staying with) told me that Czechs don't even use churches for weddings and funerals! But I was going to talk about my flights. Wow! I could totally tell you guys were praying. Everything went so smoothly. I also got to have some really neat conversations with the people who sat next to me. From Chicago to London I ended up sitting between two University of Missouri students. They were also on their way to Prague for an exchange/study abroad program. Jo...
Read more

Training in the windy city

Greetings from Chicago!! I must say that the city lives up to its name. Yesterday when we toured downtown it was quite windy so I got to sport the windblown look for the evening. Chicago also has great older buildings, amazing deep dish pizza and a gorgeous sky line! I took a ton of pictures and really enjoyed being a tourist for the day. I'll post some of them when I have some more time. Training here at TEAM headquarters in Wheaton has been fairly intense. We have breakfast at 7:15 and start sessions at 8 a.m. Its a pretty non-stop day. Really relevant info for the most part though. We've learned lots of good safety travel tips, what to expect if a TEAMserve missionary gets kidnapped, how to avoid being pick pocketed, etc. I don't think I'll have to worry about the kidnapping stuff but there is a gal going to Eastern Asia so that stuff is relevant. Also learned about TEAMs history as an organization, what to be aware of as far as knowing our own expectations, the best...
Read more

Presence is Enough

Give me something to do! I whined to Iva the cook for the Compassion project. She just laughed at me and told me to go find Mariza the director. I am learning that while there is plenty to do a day at Vila Andrade is not defined by tasks. I am expected to just show up and then see how the morning develops. Yesterday this meant playing with the children, having lunch with them and then coloring and reading until 2 o clock. My afternoons are more planned out and Pastor Marcelo is doing his best to stick with our schedule. I have been told that I do not seem to have a good attitude at times and I think the lack of a pre-planned, task focused day is 90% of the problem. Now that I know that showing up and just going with the flow is the main expectation my stress and frustration levels have gone down significantly. However, being able to deal with and be game for whatever comes up is challenging. Take this morning for instance. I was super tired and barely managed to drag myself to the 8 am...
Read more