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enough to keep, even if it is a bit outdated…]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
