Throughout the week, I spent lots of time with friends doing various activities. One evening, a group of friends and I went to get snacks, and then I followed them around the city as they searched for Pokemon on their phones. I met with another friend for coffee one morning, and she helped me practice my Czech so I can sound more native when speaking. Another day, I went with a friend for ice-cream and then wandered through the park behind the castle, climbing trees, and following paths by the river. I also spent an afternoon at a friend's house playing board games on a rainy day. We had fun playing Scrabble in "Chenglish" - Czech and English together! Still another day, I spent the morning at the home of the family who previously hosted me the other summers I have stayed in Letovice. The littlest one in the home is 2 yrs. old and has finally started saying "Kendra," whereas before he said "Kreda" in reference to me; yet, his older sisters thought his nickname for me was quite cute, and they have started using this new name for me! It is never boring with so many friends in this city.
With One of My "Czech Sisters"
Even with so many friends I spent time with this week, there was one meeting that began like the others, but became a unique experience as our conversation continued. On Friday afternoon, I got together with a friend I had met last year. She lives in a smaller village outside of Letovice, but she had heard last year that I was living in Letovice for a summer and wanted to practice her conversational English. She contacted me and asked if we could meet for some one-on-one practice. Throughout the time together, we became good friends, and I was able to share my faith with her during our conversations. She had told me last year she still did not know what to think about God, but found the topic interesting. During the year, I continued to pray that God would capture her heart and that she would have faith in Him. In our conversation on Friday, my friend asked me "Kendra, I want to ask you about how you are with God." I openly shared my heart and what God has been teaching me recently, and then I asked her why she showed curiosity in this topic. She answered that during the year, she had realized God must be real and surrendered her life to Him! I watched her face glow as she shared with me all that God was teaching her - her joy was immensely contagious! I then asked her when during the year she became a Christian, and she told me there was not a specific moment, but it came naturally. I love this image of God's love becoming relevant softly in her life. When we finally had to leave for the evening, we both left feeling so much joy and connected with each other; we truly realized the difference between "good friends" and "sisters in Christ."
Spending Time with Friends at the River
Climbing Trees
During the week, we also had Club Time; however, we realized that since the youth pastor was on a vacation for the week, we had forgotten to update our website to state that club would be open - so on Tuesday it was just two leaders and a half-leader at club. Since it was raining, we played foosball and table games and then decided that since there were no little kids around, we could watch X-Men.
Watching X-Men
On Thursday, we were planning to go to the soccer field with the club kids at 2pm, but on Thursday morning the other club leader sent me a message and said we forgot to get the key for the field from the youth pastor, we had lost our soccer ball at Vikings Camp, and it still wasn't listed on the website that we would be there... so the other leader and I did the only thing we could... we sent Facebook messages and text messages to all the club kids we could contact saying to come to the field at 4pm (when the field opens for the public) and told all of them to bring a soccer ball if they had one. There were around 15-20 people who came, and three soccer balls! It was so much fun to see this group of kids come together at the last minute to play soccer and others excited to join in as they came to the field in hopes that there would be people to play with also.
Soccer Day!
Saturday was busy as our club organization was one of the organizers for a city-wide festival. Each year the city does the 3+1 Festival to bring together non-profit organizations, city firms, city leaders, and the public in Letovice to share some of their ideas and review what has happened in the past year. There is lots of music, dancing, food, swimming at the pool, and crafts and activities for the kids! During the festival, the other leaders and half-leaders of Elim (our organization) had some responsibilities with setting up tents, preparing the bouncy castle, helping with the trash and general cleaning, and also taking down the tents and bouncy castle at the end of the day. Yet, since there were many of us to help, it was really just lots of fun. The group of us leaders and half-leaders (totaling 12 of us) got to spend lots of time together - we played mini-golf, ate pizzas, and spent a lot of time at the pool. We went down the waterslide countless times, worked together to create whirlpools going down the slide, and each got pushed in the pool at least once by our friends. I arrived home Saturday night a little sore and with some sunburn on my shoulders, but with the biggest smile from a great day!
At the Pool
Mini-Golf
There were also a group of little kids at the festival that I connected with. I have known one of the little girls since she was a baby five years ago, and she introduced me to three of her friends. Two of the friends are younger siblings of a good friend of mine and they eagerly talked with me, but the third friend was a little shy when he met me, so the little girl leaned over to him and said, "This is Kendra, don't be afraid. She is American, and she can sometimes speak Czech, but she might not understand you anyway." The funny part is that I did understand, but I didn't let this show because somehow knowing this helped the little boy warm-up to me being with his group of friends too... I guess this innocence of not knowing the language fluently gave him a little more confidence to be vulnerable with me too!
I have really been enjoying life in this city, as I regularly refer to it as a "storybook village." There are multiple moments when I find myself reaching for my phone to capture a picture as the beauty in this town and the surrounding nature is remarkable.
Rainbow Above Town's Square
The Path Through the Field
Water Vapor Rising From the Forest After the Rain
I am excited to see all that we will do with coming week as I get to spend more time with kids, friends, and with God throughout the whole way. Thank you for your continuos prayers, and I look forward to sharing more with you soon!