Wednesday, July 25

Dobre den (Good day) everyone! Today was our third day at camp (Wednesday July 26) and we had planned an all day, 30 kilometer hike (This is what Pastor Ivan says and he is a jokester so I have no idea if we was serious). Unfortunately for all of us though, the weather was rainy today and we were forced to stay inside. This wasn’t too bad because we just shifted our bible and English lessons from Thursday to today so we learned about Jesus feeding the five thousand and we taught the kids numbers in our English groups. It was interesting because even though our languages separated us, the Slovak kids still understood how powerful God and Jesus are. For our English groups we taught the kids numbers and found that most of them already knew what we were teaching them. This was a little unfortunate for us but we improvised a little bit and were able to make the lesson worthwhile to the Slovak kids. After a two course lunch of alphabet soup, mashed potatoes, and chicken (I am still confused about the whole two course thing), we found that the weather permitted us to play some games outside. We played Frisbee outside and then hiked a ski slope where we played more games. After that, we went and played some soccer where I was promoted from Team USA’s water boy to goalie and we pulled off our second win against the Slovaks. I’d like to think this was from my awesome goal tending but truth be told it probably wasn’t. I was super tired from our games today so after a spaghetti dinner and a great sermon and prayer by our translator Migo, or mi amigo as I call him, I went upstairs and promptly fell asleep. A pretty typical American teenager, right? Overall, this was a really good day and I look forward to the few more days of camp and the approximate week left of our trip. Ciao and poppykosh! – Kyle Stroud