In less than 24 hours i will be leaving this country accompanied by three other guys to embark on what promises to be an exciting an probably interesting adventure. The four of us will be helping to run an English/Sports camp in Zilina, Slovakia where we will have the opportunity to present the gospel through our actions and our words to the youth from this city. I wish to tell you a short version of how this trip came to be.Many months ago i was contacted by Ed Rumbold with an email requesting that i participate in an internship through Josiah Venture in Slovakia for three months of the Summer. Due to previous engagements i was unable to accept, however, i did desire to put together a team to do a short term trip. After discussing it with several people it seemed as though that desire was going to be left to itself. That is until a particular day at the Stahlke residence in Ohio at a prayer breakfast. Around a dozen of us had eaten breakfast together and then spent the morning lifting up praises and requests to God. I had stated at the beginning that my Uncle Todd and several others from his church would be attending a conference in Eastern Europe and that prayer was needed for their travels and the success of the conference. We proceeded to pray through the morning for many requests including this particular one.
Later in morning after we had finished, my friend Jon Dech asked that i tell him more about this organization that was holding the conference. I began to tell him of the work Josiah Venture is doing in Eastern Europe and particularly Slovakia. He seemed interested so i decided to throw him a curve ball. I told him if we wanted we could actually go over this Summer and help run one of the camps. Now for those of you who know Jon, when he hears something he likes you can almost see the wheels start to turn in his head and he gets a look in his eyes that truthfully, is kind of creepy. I was only halfway joking when he said, sure that'd be awesome! He looked over at two other guys Scott and Jon Clevenger and they agreed to as well. So in a matter of five minutes we had put together a team to help run a Slovak camp. This is but one of the miraculous ways Christ has already worked in this trip. From there i needed to contact Ed.
Several days later i had the chance to skype with Ed and talk with him about the possibility of helping at a camp. We were about a month or two too late for signing up, but it just so happened that one camp in particular had had an American team back out. There was miracle number two. And they just went on from there. As we've grown closer to the day of actually leaving for the trip Satan has not missed an opportunity to attack us. Every nitch he sees he attempts to get ahold of which has been a challenge for us as a team. But praise God he has helped us overcome those and though we're not even in Europe yet, we've already become closer and stronger as a team because of it.
