What is JV Doing This Summer

Dear Friends,

Earlier today I received a note on Facebook from our 21 year old son, Tyler. “Yeeeeah! God’s doing some pretty amazing things!” It was great to hear news from him because I’ve been praying for him all week. Tyler is leading a team of interns in the Czech Republic, and they are just finishing up their first camp with a church in Ostrava.

They are not the only ones I’m praying for. Our 18 year old son, Caleb, is also serving at a camp, and the JV staff are leading another 20 camps just this week. Summer is one of the most important times of evangelism for our team. In the next 6 weeks, they will lead over 85 camps and share the gospel with over 6000 young people!

Let me give you the “birds eye view” of how these camps work. In Eastern Europe, it is hard to get a lost young person into church, but they will sign up for a week of camp with Christians. Part of the draw is English. Becoming fluent in English is their ticket to the world, and the possibility of a week with native English speakers is very attractive. But the fun they have and relationships they form are also high on the list for a young person.

Each of our camps is done in partnership with a local church. This makes it possible for the local fellowship to continue to follow up on the relationships and allows us to deeply build into the lives of the local leaders in a way that brings lasting fruit. They spend May and June inviting their lost friends and putting out the word in the schools. Generally over half the campers are non-Christians.

We bring teams from the States to staff the camps. It takes almost 700 short-term workers to pull it off. Can you imagine the logistics of getting all those people prepared and to the right place?

A typical day starts in the morning with English classes. Small groups of 8-12 students meet with two or three American leaders. The young people learn English in a highly interactive environment with a lot of games and conversation. This also builds close relationships with a small group of people. Free time in the afternoon is followed by sports and then the evening program.

Even in another language, young people like to sing, and energetic songs and crowd breakers get the group going and prepared for the main evening talk. Testimonies come next and then a small group discussion back in their classes.

The result is a powerful week-long experience where young people hear and see the gospel in their language – the language of relationships. Typically 10% of the non-Christians will make a commitment to follow Christ and be in a local church one year later.

As you can imagine, this is not without a lot of hard work and intense spiritual warfare. We are trusting God for much spiritual fruit, but we need you to fight with us in prayer! Would you join us in a special way this month?

Thank you for standing with us this summer,