A Day in the Life

Dear Friends and Family,

It's currently 11am here in the Czech Republic (5am in Pennsylvania) on Sunday morning and it's a much-needed day of rest! Our trip started last Thursday as we drove to the LAX airport from the Dizmas hometown of Lancaster, CA. We flew from LA to Frankfurt, Germany and from there to Prague, CZ. In Prague we took a bus to the subway and the subway to a train with a destination of Frydlant, a suburb of Ostrava, CZ. We arrived here safe and sound with a heavy dosage of jet-lag and spent the next few days preparing for the coming week of work. After countless meetings, meet and greets, and briefings, we were all ready to get into the schools where the kids were at.

The basic objective of each week is to go into high-schools and build relationships with the kids - also, inviting them to the end of the week concert and daily evening activities. The Josiah Venture has been allowed into high-schools to speak on things like, drugs, aids, sex, and American culture. Basically, the assemblies we do fulfill a requirement each school has to meet regarding a forum about morals and culture. So, the administration is happy they don't have to do it and we are using the opportunity to invite kids to events where the Gospel will be shared.

There is just so much to describe, I've decided to give you a basic schedule of our days this week so that you can get a better picture of what it is we are doing:

5:20am - Wake up, quiet time
5:40 - Nick and I walk to the vans (we are the default drivers because no one else can drive a manual transmission) parked somewhere in the city and drive them back to where we are staying.
6:00 - Everyone is at the van loading up the gear (there is a BUNCH of it...A full PA, lights, projecting equipment all in big road cases) - Due to a problem with theft in the Czech we have to unload the van every time we're not going to be in it, which usually means unloading and loading about 3 times a day. We're sore.
6:15 - Leave for the school.
6:30 - Arrive at the school and load everything into the gym. Set-up the PA and all of the amps, drums, instruments. Sound check. The assemblies start at 8, so we have a lot to do in a short amount of time!
8:00 - The assembly begins and we play 4 songs in between talking points and video clips. The concert at the end of the week is promoted. Kids can decide on a lecture to attend for the afternoon, one of which is a discussion of American style and culture with Dizmas.
9:00 - Assembly ends.
9:15 - The five Dizmas guys head to a classroom for about 3 hours worth of lectures with a translator and a slide show of pictures from home. The rest of the guys pack up unless we have an additional afternoon session, in which case they come with us to the classroom. The lectures were very intimidating at first...We had nothing to lecture on! Now, we have a formula that seems to be working. We start out with an ice-breaking game, which allows everyone to learn each other's names. This is great, because we're almost always able to remember the kids that we meet, call them by name when we see them, and even pray for them later on. From there, we break into smaller groups and talk about each other's cultures.
12:30pm - Possible 2nd session in the gym with some more music.
1:30 - Pack up and load out. (LOTS of stairs...Why are all of the gyms on the top floor??!)
2:00 - Arrive back at the headquarters and unload the van.
2:30 - Lunch and then maybe nap time. If it's the weekend, we head to the venue where to big concert is going to be and set-up up everything again for that.
4:00 - Head to evening activity. These vary and are lead by local small groups (youth groups). Usually they involve some type of game, like airsoft (basically shooting each other with BB guns), ping-pong, and fooseball, and an awkward "talk show" with the band :)
7:30 - 8:00 - Head back to the base.
9:30 - Prayer meeting and debriefing.
10:00 - Free time...Bed time.

The first week went great, I think. The concert on Friday was amazing! About 300 people showed up, which is really good for the town of Hradec Kralove. I've never seen kids have so much fun at a show. Everyone on the team did a great job and we all made some great relationships with kids. Last night we had one final event. Many of the kids from the concert came out and connected with the local church! In a country with only 2,000 Christians, that is so cool. Praise God!

One week down, 6 more to go (and 6 more cities). Please continue to pray over this!

Jon