More About English Camps

Have you had those times in your life when you look back and don’t recognize who you were?  Or maybe you look back and thank God that you aren’t who you were.  Or maybe you look back, and are glad you have had the opportunities to grow in the ways you did.  Right now, I am sitting at the end of about 8 weeks in the Czech Republic.  Today we had our exit interviews with the team, so I am in somewhat of a reflective mood.  I am looking back and realizing that I have grown a lot in the past couple years…  A ton in fact…  In ways (a thousand, maybe?), I don’t recognize who I was.  In other ways (yes, a thousand), I am really glad I am not who I was.  And in all the ways (well, a thousand at least), I am glad I have had the opportunities to grow that I have.  The past two summers, a big part of the growth process has been English camps.  [Note: that was typed while I was still in the Czech Republic, and I deemed it good enough to keep, even if it is a bit outdated…]

Every year, the camps have a main theme, with different sub-themes each day.  This year the theme was Re:connect.  While most of the themes are self-explanatory in everyday life, the camps focused on particular aspects of their meaning.  So just for fun, and to help me remember exactly what we talked about, I shall define them for you.  Re:connect.  Connecting again something that was connected at one point, but became disconnected.  Re:think.  Thinking again about decisions we have made in life.  Re:act.  Responding again to things that have happened in life, specifically broken or fulfilled dreams.  Re:play.  Playing over again our reactions to broken or fulfilled dreams.  Re:focus.  Focusing again, specifically on the fact that we need help to get us through difficult situations.  Re:ject.  Being jected again (ha ha, just kidding…).  Being separated once again from something you were once connected to.  Re:store.  Being brought back to something you were once separated from.  As I mentioned in my previous post, a lot of the daily activities revolve around the camp sub-themes.

            The first week, I had Jenda, Aneta, Tereza, Dominik, and Jarda in my class.  We had quite a bit of fun.  Wow, the younger camp was ages ago…  It was quite an interesting class, as you can tell from my cover photo on facebook. 

            I had a class of mostly new students for the second camp.  Tomas, Jirka, Karel, Marek, Ivan, and Martin all came for the first time.  Tomas (yes, there were two) was the only returner of the students.  Seven teenage boys, a 20 year old teacher, another slightly older teacher that is still a teenager at heart (shout out to Daniel Johnson, my teaching partner and a great encouragement to me), and a helper that is also slightly older (cough cough), but is also a kid at heart (shout out to David Gretzmier, who was also a big help and a great encouragement)- what could possibly go wrong?  So maybe a couple other classes got aggravated at how loud we were…  It’s not like water balloons got thrown at us, or busted inside the room, or that another class decided to throw paper balls at us and then try to trap us upstairs by piling chairs in the stairwell!  Oh wait, that did happen…

            It is hard to explain everything about English camps.  One, we do a lot of stuff.  They are 6 days stuffed as full as possible.  Lots of action, lots of activities, lots of fun, little sleep.  Two, they are a roller coaster of emotion.  Saturday before camps is filled with getting ready, but you are finally at camp, and all the preparation is about to pay off.  Sunday the campers get there, and you are so excited to meet new people and to have camp finally underway that you can barely contain it.  Monday the camps start in earnest.  You build more relationships, you get to know people better, and you have a blast.  Tuesday the intensity picks up even more.  Wednesday tends to be a bit tough.  It’s the middle of the week, the middle of camps.  By then you are tired and getting worn out.  For me though, I know that if I can make it through Wednesday, the rest of the week will be all downhill.  Thursday, you realize time is getting short.  The talent show is Thursday night into Friday morning, so a lot of Thursday is spent preparing for that.  Friday is tough, because you are super tired, and not looking forward to leaving everyone.  Then it is Friday night, which is always a special night for one reason or another, so you are so happy because it is so much fun, but you are also sad, because you know that tomorrow is Saturday, and you leave camp on Saturday.  And then Saturday comes.  You haven’t gotten much sleep the past two nights, if not more than that, you have to leave all the good friends you made, and some of them you won’t see again.  Then again, it has been a long week, and you are super tired and worn out.  But you are leaving and busy most of the day, and somehow change tends to excite me, and leaving camp is a definite change in scenery so I am happy but I am leaving the beautiful village camp is held in and all the friends and some of them will be too busy to make all the after-camp activities so I won’t see them again but some of them are already gone anyway and I am so tired and I need to recharge but I want to be around those people and talk about things and get to know them better but I am so tired it is hard to care but I will miss them and I want to spend as much time with them as possible before I have to leave…  Like I said, it’s a roller coaster of emotion. 

            Thinking back to the camps and the memories made brings up a good point.  The important part of camps is the people.  Teaching English is secondary.  The students, the team there (the long term missionaries, Josh, Sarah, Mitch, and Christie), the campaigners (those from the US coming for 2 to 5 weeks, and we might throw the interns in there as well), those are the important people.  Getting to know the students has been a huge blessing for me.  They ask questions, they suggest answers to questions, they are fun to be around, they are real, they are people.  Some of my fondest memories are conversations with Jarda, Dominik, Jan, Karel, Jirka, Matej, and Lukas.  If you include translators, I can’t help but add Annie, Joe, Pepe, Honza, and David to that list.  Then I start thinking about the connections made with the Czech-Americans (because they are very rarely ever referred to as “the Americans”) and Americans, and the list keeps growing.  The time spent with the team at camp has been a blessing to me.  Seeing their love for the students and the campaigners that come to help is an inspiration to me.  They are incredible.  Daniel Johnson is another missionary in the Czech Republic.  He has been my teaching partner the past two years, and I am so glad!  There is so much I can learn from him, from how to connect to students to how to encourage others to how to lead discussion groups.  I don’t know his wife Kim so much, but if she is truly his better half, she must be pretty rocking awesome.  David Gretzmier has also been a big help to me.  He absolutely loves and cares about the students, and he just cannot contain it.  And yet, as much as he loves being around the students, when he is asked to be away from them to serve others, he lets go of what he wants and does it.  I would certainly be remiss if I failed to mention Nick and Steve.  Nick is the campus minister at the Bears for Christ at the University of Central Arkansas.  I marvel at his heart, his willingness to serve, and his love for the students.  And his musical talents.  His skills have given him a way to connect to students in a way many others cannot- through music.  It is always great to see and hear him preform at the talent show with the students and with Joe and David.  Steve…  There are not many men I respect more.  He is someone I can turn to for answers, someone I can lean on when I am facing trials, someone I can trust.  He is my brother in Christ, and has been a huge blessing in my life.  He is rarely in the foreground at camp, but is always there to help, serve, and support.  And the campaigners…  This year I did not spend as much time with them, but their presence was a huge encouragement to me.  They took 5 weeks out of their summer to come serve God in the Czech Republic.  I think that says a lot about their love for God and their willingness to serve Him and others.  And then the interns…  Laura and Bree…  We went through quite a lot together this summer in the 8 weeks we spent together.  I wish it had all been a cake walk, and I wish the rough patches we hypothetically faced were never my fault, but alas, such was not the case.  However, we made it through, because at the end of the day, we are all children of God, which means we are all family, and family sticks together and loves one another. 

Encouraging point for this post- we are a family in the Church.  We are a family with a bond that is stronger than any physical blood ties.  We are held together by the love of God, and when we express that love to one another, humbling ourselves and loving one another as God loves us, fully and unconditionally, then we will be unified.  My conclusion from that is that if we are not unified, then we are not loving one another fully and unconditionally, the way God loves us regardless of our faults and flaws, and we should fix that.  For the record, I should work on that in my own life.

I know that is a lot, and I hope there will be more to come soon.  As I finish, I realize I talked a lot about the Americans at camp, and less about the students and the team there.  That will have to be rectified.  But for now, chau!

God bless,

John Coffey

Logistics

And we are back…  It has been a long and eventful couple of weeks, and I will try to continue to update piece by piece as I have time.  At this point, the English camps are over.  I think for now I will focus on them.

English camps are interesting.  In ways, they are similar to church camp or ALC.  A bunch of teenagers get together for a week to build relationships and learn.

Logistics: Camp starts Sunday afternoon at a hotel (Penzion Later) 2 hours away from Olomouc by train.  They get Czeched in (sorry, I couldn’t resist), we play some games, we eat supper, and the programs begin.  The first night we hear from the team from here in Olomouc, go over some rules, and have an introduction into what camp will be like.  We then break into teaching classes for some discussion time.  After discussion we have free time, and then curfew at 12.  Monday through Thursday are pretty similar.  Devotional (optional) at 7:45, followed by teaching group prayer time (the teachers break into their groups, and each group prays for what is on their mind), and breakfast at 8:30.  Breakfast (I refuse to call them “Breekfast”) announcements start at 9 (announcements for the day and introduction to the day’s sub-theme), and are opened by a skit by one or two of the class groups over the previous day’s sub-theme.  We then did the camp dance, a game related to the day’s sub-theme, and then went to English classes by 9:30.  Class ran until 12, with a 15 minute break at 10:45.  Each day had a lunch skit at 12:15, over the sub-theme for the day, and lunch at 12:30.  Free time was from lunch until 3:30.  Each day we have different activities (optional) to fill part of free time, and had a group activity that started at 3:30.  Dinner was at 6, followed by the evening program at 7.  The evening program consisted of the camp dance, VBS-style songs, maybe a video or two to express the day’s sub-theme, a testimony (related to the day’s sub-theme), sometimes a skit (related to the day’s sub-theme), and a dramatization of part of the apostle Peter’s life (you guessed it, related to the day’s sub-theme).  Evening program was followed by discussion group, followed by free time or a planned activity until curfew at 12.  Monday and Tuesday were just free time, Wednesday was a movie night (Unconditional, great movie), Thursday was the talent show (always runs past midnight, hence the different schedule for Friday).  Friday, the morning devotional was pushed back to maybe 9:15 (by that time I was so tired, I wasn’t really paying attention to time), followed by breakfast and announcements, then class by 11.  The rest of the day followed according to plan, until after the evening program.  Because Friday was a special night.  We had the “Walk of Lights”, an activity intended to connect or Re:Connect all the day’s sub-themes together and to Christianity.  That was followed by discussion group (optional for Friday night only), and no curfew.  At the older camp, a group of us left the Penzion for a vylet (a long walk) at 2 in the morning, to go to a mountain top to watch the sun rise and sing (we made really good time- it only took us 1.5 hours to get there…).  Saturday activities start with breakfast about 8:30 and morning program at 9.  Saturday we try to tie the theme together with Christianity and we watch a slideshow of the week.  We then pack up and clean up until lunch, and hang out until about 1, when we hike down to the train station to head back to Olomouc.  And we sleep.  And sleep.  And sleep.  I think the record is 19 or 20 hours, but 10 to 15 hours is pretty common. 

As for me, I am tired, but will continue to get better as I catch up on sleep.  When that will be, I am not too sure…  Tomorrow I am heading back to the Penzion Later to help move camp stuff from there back here to Olomouc.  We are leaving early in the morning to make the afternoon activity tomorrow at 3 (basketball/volleyball, followed by at least part of Bree’s testimony).  It’s going to be a great day!

For now, I am going to call this good.  It is getting late, and I do not have the time to write all about the friendships or memories made.  But those should be coming shortly…  Until then, take care and God bless!

John Coffey

A Touch of Steak

Well, it looks like I will not be giving an in-depth update on what I am doing here.  I do apologize for that, but I feel my time is better spent posting about the spiritual details.  Fast food is good if you are in a rush, but steak is better in every way, shape, and form, as long as you have time to enjoy it and the tools to cut it.

As a Christian here on earth, what is our purpose?  Are we just here to make it to heaven?  Are we just here to ensure our salvation?  Or are we here to do more than that?  Are we here to glorify God?  Is “ensuring our salvation” a stepping stone to achieve glorifying God?

I WILL NOT say that you are wrong if you look at the bible and ask, “is this a salvation question” to determine whether you do exactly what the bible says or fudge just a bit.  I don’t have that authority, I don’t want that authority, and I will never have that authority.  That lies in God’s hands.

But I do want you to think about it.  I feel like I have made a breakthrough in beginning to understand some of those that are more liberal in their interpretation of the bible.  I am here in the Czech Republic at a retreat for missionaries in central Europe.  It is a beautiful thing.  We sing a lot, with songs in Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and English.  We study, we fellowship, and we encourage one another.  And we talk.  A lot.  The other night, a group of us talked about Christianity, and the way culture affects it.  American culture and experience has molded American Christianity.  We draw lines in the sand, and treat them as scriptural lines.  Not everyone draws the same lines, but they are drawn.  And they aren’t always a problem, as long as we keep them in America.  For example- how many say that alcohol, in any quantity, is bad?  How many churches actually use wine for communion?  In America, using grape juice is normal.  We have a fear of becoming alcoholics (at least I hope that is the reason we are so against alcohol.  I have never seen or heard of the scripture that condemns alcohol.  Drunkenness is mentioned time and again, but drinking alcohol in moderation is certainly not condemned.), and so we make sure we don’t touch alcohol.  It is hard to be an alcoholic if you don’t drink.  Personally, I am one of the ones a bit wary of alcohol, for many cultural reasons.  And that is fine, until I go to a foreign country and condemn them for drinking alcohol on occasion and using real wine for communion. We cannot condemn others for not following the line in the sand that we drew and that we hold ourselves to.  On the other hand, when we know people have lines drawn, we need to respect them, and not jump over them just because we don’t think the lines need to be drawn.  That is not the way to treat anyone, Christian brother or not.

The appetizer is over, let’s bring on the entrée.  Here is my problem-

How do we want to live our lives?  Do we want to live them in a way that we are just saved?  Or do we want to glorify God?  I do not feel comfortable asking, “What must I do to be saved?”  Does that glorify God?  I don’t think it does…  I don’t think that we can ask our creator and councilor, who also happened to give His life to become our savior, “If I do this, but not this, will you still save me?”

I am not perfect.  God doesn’t require perfection for salvation.  Otherwise, no one would be saved.  But he does tell us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”).  So do we strive for perfection, or do we settle for stopping short, because no one but Jesus has actually achieved perfection?  Personally, that mentality scares me.  I don’t want God to look at me and say, “You did okay…”  I want Him to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”  (Writing that scares me.  I don’t know that it makes a difference to God.  I don’t know exactly what God’s response to us will be.  Maybe it is the same for everyone that is saved, regardless of our actions or mentality.  I just don’t know.  I do know that I would rather strive and struggle to be the best I can be than to settle.  Settling just doesn’t work for me.)

Anywho, the question came up about communion.  If I had to, would I be okay with using an Oreo instead of bread?  The bread is a symbol of Jesus’s body, but it is only a symbol.  Could I use an Oreo, in the right mindset, to also symbolize Christ’s body?

Let’s look at the bigger picture as I see it- interpretation of the commands of the bible.  When God tells us how to do something, do we look at the reasoning behind it, and then find the means to get it done within our human perspective?  Or do we humble ourselves, realize that He knows best, and do as He says?  (Classic example- baptism.  We are told to immerse [that’s what baptize means in Greek], but that is not always “convenient”, so some settle for sprinkling.  Is there a problem with that?  Should you have a problem with that?)

Personally, I have a problem with that.  Maybe I am stupid, but I don’t feel comfortable with that.  I don’t think that we, as mortal, created human beings have the right to look at what our creator and savior has told us and say, “You told me to do it this way, but I can do the same thing this other way, and so I will.  Thanks though!”  I am conservative, and saying such things does scare me.  Some may say that is because I am weaker in my faith, as in Romans 14, or maybe that I just don’t understand scripture.  Maybe you are right.  I would prefer to see it as me being humble enough to see my place in the grand scheme of things.  I would not feel right about going up to my king, creator, and savior, and telling Him that I know a better way of accomplishing what He wants accomplished.  I just don’t feel like that is a good idea.

Maybe God will not condemn someone for using an Oreo as a symbol of Jesus’s body in a pinch.  I just don’t know.  Some don’t think that is a “salvation issue”.  Okay.  Fine.  But I don’t think that tweaking God’s commands in such a way glorifies God.  I do want to get to heaven, and I do want to serve as a missionary to help spread God’s word to the lost.  But I also want more than that- I want to glorify God with my life.  And so, personally, I am going to be conservative in my interpretation of God’s commands, and I am going to strive to follow them to the letter.  I may slip up, but I am going to try not to.  I hope that glorifies God. 

This is a lot of my personal opinion.  I know people, quite a few of them actually, that have different opinions.  I don’t want you to just agree with me.  I want you to consider yourself more than anything.  I could be completely wrong and off base, and if so, feel free to correct me.

With love, and God bless,

John Coffey

Fast Food

Ai karumba!  

You know those days when you just run and gun, getting as much stuff done as possible?  When you start working after breakfast, you work straight through lunch, and keep working until after supper?  Then, when you do have time to stop and stare, you just eat some fast food to tide you over, because you either need to go to bed or get back to work.  Have you had those days?

Luckily, things haven't been that bad.  But things have been a little busy these past couple weeks.  I meant to do an update this past monday, and I wrote down some stuff, but never posted it.  Now it is Thursday, and I still haven't gotten to it, nor will I post an in-depth update right now.  Maybe I will this weekend.  We are headed to a retreat for missionaries in this part of Europe.  It should be pretty good.  I know everyone could use a break from english camp preparations.  Mostly we have been hard at work doing that, but we have found time to keep up with most of the activities the team here does throughout the week- church, teaching english, frisbee with the teens, English Evenings, etc.  It has been busy, but fun, and I will try my best to get you a more in-depth view of what we do here.

But for now, I will leave you with a little bit of food...

Sunday I got to do the Communion thoughts/ lesson for church.  I want to share with you the condensed version, to leave you to contemplate for the week.

Romans 6:15-18

            “What then?  Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?  By no means!  Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” 

I Corinthians 6:19-20

            “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body.”

Genesis 3:14-15

            “So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’””

Matthew 27:50

            “And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”

Spiritually speaking, we are slaves to either sin or obedience.  We have a choice- we can either obey God or we can sin.  We cannot get away from that.  Unfortunately, the first time we sinned we became slaves to sin.  But that is not what God created us to be.  He created us to be with Him, to have a relationship with Him, to serve Him.  He loves us!  So He bought us, each and every one.  He paid the price so that we were not forced to be slaves to sin, we could willingly become slaves to obedience.

            And this has always been the plan.  Look at Genesis- right after Adam and Eve sin, God talks to them and the serpent.  Right after the very first sin, God tells the serpent, Satan, that the offspring of Eve, Jesus, would crush his head.  Jesus would conquer Satan.  We would be freed from our bondage.  From then on, from Genesis 3:16 to Matthew 27:49, God is building up to Matthew 27:50- Jesus dying.  Jesus died, paying the price so that we may become, not just slaves to obedience, but sons of God, children of God. 

            I think that our worth as people, as spiritual commodities, is based on how much God or Satan is willing to pay for us.  God thinks we are worth His own life.  He is so sure that we are worth His life, that He gave His life.  No matter what happens in this life, no matter how many times we are beaten down by others, no matter how many times we are rejected, unsuccessful, or unloved by our peers, we are still worth the life of God.  Nothing can take that away from us, and nothing ever will.

Jesus died so that we could be free from sin, so we might spend eternity with Him and our Father in heaven.  This week, I would encourage you to remember how much you mean to God, and what that means for the way you live your life.

God bless,

John Coffey