Kids Camp, Baseball Camp, & Game

            So this week has been our busiest yet. We started off with a church conference on Sunday, where a lot of the churches from around the area come together and have one big worship service. It was awesome to see that there is fruit from all the labor of the missionaries around Croatia and that they can come together and encourage one another. A youth group from Virginia came in on Saturday and were also able to participate in the service. A couple that is chaperoning were actually the first missionary family from our organization to come to Slovonski Brod (the town we are staying in). They served here for about 4 and a half years with their 4 children. He preached at the conference and spoke on what it really means to be a disciple of Christ. Not only was it challenging and encouraging, it was also in English so we could understand it.

My friend Maria 

            Monday started off the kids camp and baseball camp. We had the kid’s camp in the mornings and the baseball camps in the afternoons. The kid’s camp is designed for elementary aged children and is very similar to a Vacation Bible School in America. The youth group that is here from Virginia had it all planned out so we were just able to plug in where we were needed. We sang songs, played games, did crafts and acted out bible stories for the children. A lot of the children can speak English fairly well because they learn it in school, but some were so young that we had to get help to communicate with them. It was a lot of fun to see the kids laughing and smiling and hearing bible stories and the gospel for possibly the first time. By the end of the week a lot of relationships had been formed and the kids were really sad that the camp was over. Our prayer is that seeds were planted and that God will grow the seeds in the children’s hearts. Also, that they will continue to come back to camp each year, and one day come into a true relationship with Jesus as they grow up.

Kids playing sharks & minnow's at VBS

Some of the kids playing crab soccer

Guy and Arbonne
(notice the SWU hat and Oakleys on Arbonne)

            The baseball camp was in the late afternoons from 4-7 and was mostly middle school and high school age kids. Again, the youth group was really involved in the planning of this camp and they were able to work most of the stations. Guy was able to help a lot, since baseball is his thing and he has worked many camps in the past. I mostly just watched and played with the younger kids that came to the camp, who were not able to participate in all of the activities. The first day was about the absolute basics of baseball, because not only have most of the kids not every played baseball, some have never even heard of it. So they set up 6 stations where groups of kids rotated to begin learning the game. We would have a break in the middle of the camp where some of the youth from the church group would share their testimonies about how they came into a relationship with Christ and what all God has done in their lives.

Our Baseball Small Group

            The first night after camp was over they broke us up in the small groups where we were able to talk to them and see if they had any questions about the testimonies or about what God had done in our lives specifically. We also asked them some questions about what they valued most in life and what life looks like as a teen in Croatia. The answers were pretty normal for the teen generation, the most common answer was that they value soccer, girls, food, and their families. Guy then got to ask them if they had ever heard of Jesus and that he died on the cross for our sins. Most of them in our group had heard it before, because they are from the Roma village where the missionaries to the kids club there on a weekly basis. Our prayer there is that they won’t only have the knowledge of the gospel, but that they will truly believe it. There have been a lot of questions asked more privately by some of the kids at the camp to different members of the youth group. It’s amazing to see them asking more deeper questions and really trying to figure out why we believe what we believe, and them noticing a difference in our lives than most peoples lives here.

Guy in his  Slovonski Brod uniform

          

Thursday night we had a baseball game in a town about 45 minutes away, called Nova Gradiska. It was the American team (the youth group from VA) vs. the Croatian team (Slovonski Brod team plus Guy). We had a lot of spectators stop by and watch, and another guy from the youth group was able to share his testimony in the middle of the game.

            Stories are being shared, seeds are being planted, our prayer is that God will continue to knock on the doors of hearts and draw people to himself. Please pray for the people asking questions, who are so interested in finding truth. Pray that they will continue to see a difference in us and the youth group here, and that we will be salt and light at all times. Lastly, pray for boldness, that we will not be timid when sharing our stories or the gospel with people when God opens the door.