8.02.2006

week 19 and a short CampFest countdown!

Does 19 feel like a very high number to anyone else? that's almost 20!! (way to state the obvious Stas!)
Some days it feels like I’ve been here forever and then I think I’m 1/3 of the way through my year and there’s so much I thought I’d have done by now. Then I look back over my past e-mails and realize that I’ve done a ton of things I never imagined that I would!

Not a lot of impressive things have happened this past week though. Everything is gearing up toward CampFest.

Friday a few girls and I cleaned the big projection screens for Campfest and on Friday evening I went to Kosice to help Will O’Connell celebrate his 6th birthday. We went swimming, had McDonalds (Praise Jesus for McDonalds) and went back to their flat for presents and cake! I spent the night in Kosice and Just hung out some with them on Saturday.

Sunday I woke up generally not feeling well and decided to spend the morning in bed. The thought of trying to decipher a translated sermon was just too much I felt better in the afternoon, watched a sermon on my computer and did some knitting and tidying up.

Monday at work I helped with some small detail work. One theme of CampFest is raising an army of young people from seemingly dry bones. (Ezekiel 37), so everyone at CampFest is getting a dog tag with a praying stick figure. We have 3,000 of these tags and they all needed strung onto cord.

Tuesday, I continued the dog tag threading. In the evening I bought an 80L knapsack to pack in for CampFest, my large wheelie suitcase that I could fit into with room to spare, was just not the practical solution!

Today we put the last video stuff together and packed boxes.

The next 12 days I will be out of communication

Tomorrow (Thursday) we leave from Presov.

The 4-6th (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) there will be a 3 day event called “Daniel Generation.” This is for the volunteers who will work during CampFest. The idea is that they will be prepared to serve and enjoy themselves a bit before working through CampFest.

The 7-9th (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) will be full days of setting up tents and stands and all the other things that can only be done on site.

CampFest kicks off with the evening program on the 10th(Thursday) and then all craziness breaks loose through 2:00AM Sunday the 13th.

Then tearing down on Sunday and Monday morning and hopefully (unless the plan changes, which is likely) we will be back late Monday evening the 14th.

My responsibilities at CampFest include cutting live video for the big screens in the mornings and photographing the evening programs. Oh, and whatever else they ask me to do :)

2 weeks ago I updated on how to pray for CampFest and now I want to tell you how you can pray for me at CampFest.

An easy way to remember my requests is to pray that I will be able to follow “the rules” (these are from playing youth soccer with my dad and they have translated to my life):

1, Do your best.
Please pray for my Health. In addition to my known allergies to the location of CampFest I have been coming down with a cough/cold. Running around like crazy and spending 12 days sleeping on the floor when it will be around 50 degrees at night might not be the best things to do about that. The schedule at CampFest will translate to long days, short nights, and screwy sleep schedules. (I like sleep.) AND, there will be very little “introvert time.”, which is how I run. Satan will try to use all these things to mess with my health and attitude and stop me from doing the best job that I can.

2, Respect your teammates.
Roman told me today that by the end everyone will be “cheeky monkeys.” I have no clue what that expression means exactly, but I think it translates to “pray for interpersonal relationships on the MPK team!” We have an intense, close-quartered 12 days ahead and everyone's’ already been working like crazy the past weeks. You can help by praying against attitudes and tempers being brought into the mix!

3, Have fun.
As for the fun thing. CampFest will be dirty, and crowded, and lets face it, I am not an outdoorsy camping sort of girl. But there will be lots of opportunities if I just take hold of them. Maybe you remember the “things that smell good” from the Prague excursion, there will be a booth selling those!! (I’m taking guesses on how much “things that smell good” weight I will put on:)) There will also be great music, ,interesting people, and we have a stunning view of the Tatras mountains to the North. I enjoy cutting video and taking pictures. I just have to not lose perspective, chill out, and go with the flow.


Your prayers will be greatly appreciated on these matters as well as all the other CampFest things you have already been praying for! (i.e. safety, weather, technical stuff, Holy Spirit’s moving)
(If you’re interested, www.campfest.sk is the website and is available in English)
(I like parenthesis)

You rock my world, and your prayers will help CampFest Rock the youth of Slovakia!!
:)Stasi!!



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