Adventure Camp in Bovec

We had our first High School camp in Kocevje this year, and it was an Adventure camp in Bovec. That's a beautiful town in the North West of Slovenia, surrounded by mountains, and it's not super crowded with tourists yet. It's a hidden gem of Slovenia :)

We went camping and had 4 days of rain which wasn't fun, but now we have some funny and interesting stories to tell :) It was stretchy though. God answered our prayers for unity and I think we all learned a lot about ourselves and each other.

There were 9 of us total (5 Slovenes, 3 Americans). We did different activities (rafting, paintball, hiking, sightseeing, waterfalls…) and had a lot of fun. We cooked for ourselves in a small kitchen at our campsite and lived as a big family. It was one of the best camps I've ever been to! :)

Beginning of summer: Junior High English Camp 2014 ~ Upside Down

This summer has been the busiest summer I've ever had! But it has also been the best summer I've ever had! :)

We had our Junior High camp at the end of June, and it was a great camp! We had 47 campers (last year we had 70) and God answered one of my personal prayers that I would have more time to build relationships with students. I was actually able to sit down with them and play cards, do crafts and talk.

We had English classes in the morning, then lunch, afternoon activities (sports, slip'n'slide, paintball…), dinner, camp dance, songs with motions, evening program (we talked about the Upside Down Kingdom of God), discussion groups and then a late night party (Christmas in June, Minute to Win it games, camp fire…).

My friend Andrea put this video together; it captures our camp very well :)

A gracious answer

We all know God hears our prayers, all of them, no matter how long or short they are. He hears them. But we often don't feel like He does because nothing major happens; there's no lightning coming down from the sky, there's no visible sign of it… and sometimes we don't see His answer for a long time.

In summer 2011 I was doubting God's love for me. I was only a Christian for a good year and I was a summer intern with Josiah Venture in Celje, a city I didn't know. It was a hard summer and my doubt didn't help the struggles. I prayed a prayer I don't often pray, and said, "God, can you please show me your love for me? Can you show me you love me?" My motives weren't entirely right because I kind of tested God. I said, "If you give me a black lilly, I'll know you love me." I didn't know black lilies exist (they do) so I was thinking God will never be able to show me a black lilly.
I came to my parents house a couple of weeks later, said hi to my mom, and then stopped in shock. There it was, a black lilly on our table. My mom came to me and said, "Do you like it? I got it at out garden." The lilly had 3 flowers on it (it reminded me of the Trinity) and it was beautiful. As "hard" as it was for me to think God could give me a black lilly and as wrong as my motives were in asking Him to do this for me, God provided the flower to show me just how much He loves me!

God gave me a big promise in December, something that's very important to me. A lot of stuff happened in the past few months that made me start questioning if that promise really was from God or if I just made it up. I remembered the prayer from 2011 and decided to ask God to confirm His promise to me, if it was from Him, with a rainbow. I continued with my day, forgetting what I prayed for.
It was Friday so we had our Junior High youth group in the evening. I drove the kids home afterwards, it was 8:20pm. We were driving towards Kocevje and there was a small patch of forest before us. We drove past it and there was this huge rainbow in the sky! :)
I got tears in my eyes and I explained to the girls how just 4 hours before that I prayed that God would show me a rainbow and confirm His promise to me, and He did! He did it when it was almost night, it was raining most of the day, and he did it in just those 10min when I was outside and was actually able to see it! Oh, how amazing, loving, gracious and good God we have! He didn't have to answer my prayer, but He did, by His grace. I feel loved and seen, and God confirmed something that means a lot to me!

Oh, what a day… :)

Christena and I have become really good friends in the past year. In fact, she is my best friend here in Slovenia. Friendship with her was given to me as a gift from God. She challenges me, makes me laugh, speaks honestly with me, shares her heart with me, listens to me, and even though she's not a crying kind a person, she cries with me sometimes.

With the busy schedule that we have, we don't get to spend much quality time together, though we see each other almost every day. That's why we decided to take a full day off, just the two of us :) Shawn was taking care of the kiddos and we were able to really spend good time with one another.

We went to downtown Ljubljana. Christena's lived in Slovenia for over 2 years now but never really got to tour Ljubljana and see all the cool and special places. So, I took her on a quick tour of Ljubljana through my eyes :) We ate lunch at Paninoteka where they have delicious sandwiches, we went to Cacao for the yummiest ice cream in the world (flavors we had: muffin, sacher cake, mango) and then we visited my family at their garden. Sweet time.

We were leaving my parents around 5:30pm. It was still kind of early to go home but we didn't really have much to do on a Sunday afternoon (most stores were closed).
I came up with the idea, and I said it out loud more as a joke than anything else, but Christena got really excited! I asked her, "Do you want to go to Piran?" (Piran is my favorite town in Slovenia. It's on the coast and it's beauuuuutiful. I've been telling Christena about it ever since we met, and she hasn't gone there yet because she wanted me to take her.)

We weren't lucky enough to see Piran in the sun… :)

So, off we were, at almost 6pm :) it's a good hour drive to get there and the weather wasn't looking good. We prayed and the more we went towards the coast, the clearer the sky was. Oh, is God good! :)

We got there, parked our car and RAN to the town! The wind was blowing but it was so warm, we were in our short sleeves.

I took her to my favorite coffee shop, showed her my favorite jewelry shop, took her to the church on top of the hill (you see Croatia on the left and Italy on the right) and then we walked back to the car. It was a short visit but it was a perfect day to walk on the beach, to be goofy and crazy, not worrying about life and the summer and everything else. We were really able to relax and enjoy the beautiful creation of God.

We ended the day with a really delicious pizza with sea fruits and looots of garlic on it :)

It was around 9:30pm when we headed back home. We were just about to leave the parking lot when the wind blew soooo harsh it almost moved the whole car. We saw lightning everywhere, and then the rain came. Oh… we knew we were headed into a fun storm.

We started driving and saw a really bad car accident. We were there just seconds after it happened and it seemed like a man was lying on the road. Crazy!
The lightning was EVERYWHERE, it was raining so hard I couldn't see a thing, and there were many cars on the road. We were praying like crazy!
We were on the highway where the speed limit is 130km/h and I was driving 60km/h, sometimes 80km/h. The lighting was striking all around us, sometimes really close to us. Christena said she bit her whole lip from being so scared of the drive back. She wasn't the only one…

So, we're driving towards Ljubljana, and we notice something white on the road. We were thinking, "Oh, it's probably hail…" but it was too white and it wasn't just on the side of the road but on the road too… and then we realized it wasn't hail but snow! It was May 11th, and we were in a snow storm! There was 0ºC outside, freezing; no wonder there was snow! We were caught in a snow storm 15min outside of Kocevje, too!

I spent the night at Shawn and Christena's, too scared to drive home, and full of adrenaline from the ride home.

It was a really crazy day yesterday but at the same time such an amazing day, full of adventures and spontaneous decisions. Christena sure does challenge me ;)

A different kind of week

Last week our youth had a week off, and Shawn and Christena went to the Spring Conference, so I used the opportunity and stayed at their house :) I invited High School girls over one night for a girls night. We had so much fun!!! I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, and for so long! That night truly was a blessing and a gift from God!

I made enchiladas (the girls have never had them before)…

… then we played "golf" and ate delish chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream…

… we watched "What If" and "Pearl Harbor" and cried our eyes out...

I LOVE this group of girls! Meeting with them every week is not even ministry, it's friends coming together, sharing about God and what He's been doing in their lives. It doesn't get better than that! :)

We also went to the movies with our Junior High group. We went to see 'Noah', even though I read the reviews and was skeptical about it. One of our boys was sitting next to me in the movies and kept asking, "Is this from the Bible? Did this happen in the Bible? …" We talked about the story of Noah from the Bible later on, and how the movie makers took verses out of the Bible and didn't really picture what the Bible was saying.
It was good to go to a bigger city with them though, and have some fun :)

Tim, Lovro, Laura, Tian, Manca and me :)

English Camp 2014

We've been in full preparation and organization of English Camps!! :)

We are doing 2 camps this summer: Junior High and High School English Camp. Last year we only did a Junior High camp and had an amazing response; 70 kids signed up and made our camp the biggest camp in the entire Slovenia! This year we only have 60 spots available for them, and we're doing a similar camp than last year, with a whole lot of adventurous things (rafting, paintball, climbing…).

We were praying about different options for our High School camp and even took a step of faith in one direction, but God closed the door and opened another one. We're going to Bovec (my 2nd favorite place in Slovenia!) where we'll do camping in tents, rafting, canyoning, hiking, mountain bike riding, paintball… This camp will be smaller, there will only be around 30 of us all together. We only have 6 High Schoolers coming to our weekly youth group now and we're praying that more will start coming next school year. We are hoping this camp will connect us, that we will feel like a big family and really make great, long-lasting friendships.

We started advertising our Junior High camp last week and have so far told about it to 250+ Junior Highers. It's amazing to see God's hand upon all of this because doors of all Elementary schools in Kocevje are completely open for us to come and share about camp for 5~20min per class (that's not normal for Slovenia!!!).
We will start advertising our High School camp in 2 weeks.

Please be praying with us that youth will sign up, that God will open their hearts and give them a desire to come. So far we have 5 kids signed up for Junior High camp.

Our last year's English Camp :)

Church retreat in Croatia

We have a church retreat in Crikvenica, Croatia every Spring. 3 churches come together to worship, fellowship and hear from God. Crikvenica is on the coast, and the hotel we stay at is right at the beach. It's gorgeous!

Church in Slovenia is growing and the number of people at the retreat got really high this year; there were 220 of us! It was so encouraging to see people from Ljubljana and Radovljica that I don't see often, it was great to hang out with the College Group and play board games, it was great to just walk, eat ice cream and enjoy the view of the Mediterranean sea.

We took some youth from Kocevje with us and I loved spending more time with them, seeing them enjoy worship and sermons (our theme was Reformation of heart) and make new friends.

With Domen 

2 of my friends got baptized there too, it was great! I got baptized in Crikvenica 4 years ago so that's a special place for me.

God sure knows how to bless us :)