Czech This Out

Here is Kiel's post about his trip to the Czech Republic.

Well I've been back for a few weeks now from the Czech and I suppose its time to let you all know how it went. As most of you know we left on the 4th of July and it was all good because we actually left a few hours then we were suppose to so we didn't have to wait around and be bored all night. The Flight was good, I really enjoyed the Atlanta to Paris flight because every seat had a dvd monitor so we could watch movies and such. I fell asleep and slept most of the night and when I woke up I realized i had missed breakfast but it was no biggie.

Once we got into Prague we were picked up and taken to the Klika's (Sponsors) house. There were a few students there waiting to meet us and we ate dinner with them which was cool. We had about 3 days before camp to prepare our cirriculums and do a little sight seeing. We went into Kutna Hora which had a church made completely out of bones. It was pretty neat to go in and see it and all. We also went through some cathedrals and castles as well looking at all the old paintings and altars were pretty cool too. When it came time to go to camp we left a night early to do some last minute preparations to the grounds so we left and got up to the camp around 10:00 Friday night when the kids would arrive the following afternoon around 4.

That night Brandon, the band, and I all worked on some of the worship songs until like 12:00. We made some progress but knew we needed to work alot harder at them. We woke up the next morning and went straight to work. When the kids arrived around 4:00 they got room assignments and what not. They moved us from these awesome rooms to these cabins where the beds were like 3 foot long and there was no way I was gonna be able to do that. Luckly there was an extra bed in one of the rooms so I nabbed it as soon as I could. We all ate dinner and did our evening program then did some night time swimming and then put all the kids to bed.

The next day we had breakfast then started our lessons. After our lessons we ate lunch then had free time till around 4:00. During the free time they had arts and crafts going on or some sort of athletic activity going on such as volleyball or football (European Football that is). The first day I was in charge of the games so we played some old camp games I was familiar with from my days at Wiregrass camp. We played Hold on to your brother (Or Hold on to yer Mate) where the object is for the guys to all get on the floor and interlock arms, hands, legs, and bodies. Once situated the girls had 10 mintues to pull the guys apart from one another. It was a great bonding experiance for the guys as you could see them holding on for dear life to there friends. We did the evening thing again just like the night before.

The rest of the week was pretty much based on the same schedule with a some really funny highlights. One night we had an indoor "snowball" fight. We had taken balls of newspaper and wrapped them with packing tape before we got to camp but Mrs. Klika would not tell us what they were for. Basically it was a 30 minute free-for-all with these brown balls of destruction tearing through the halls of the rooms. I got hammered one time as all the kids turned on the Americans... unfortunatley.. Me and Janelle were the only ones playing. After getting hit by like 300 balls I stood up and regained composure. Another fun night was when we had the disco because none of the kids had any rythm so me and ben had to teach them how to dance and that was pretty funny. One of the worst things about camp was that after playing in the hott morning sun we had lunch which is served with hot soup everyday and the only thing to drink is hot tea so here we are sweating in 85 degree weather then on top of that we have to drink hot tea AND eat HOT soup... talk about trying to get you as hot as possible.

Camp was fun though I bonded with alot of the students and learned some czech as well. After camp was done we had a few days left before coming home so we spent them shopping and sightseeing. The flight back was good and everything went well. I have a few funny short stories I will be writing about so that My dad can have something to post in these "dry spell" periods.. lol jk dad. But Thank You to everyone who helped either with funding or Prayers they certainly helped us alot. Thanks Again...Kiel