Our Last Days

Temple of ZeusEating Gyros

With Festus (we ate at his restaurant on Tuesday night)...

On the rooftop of our hotel (Hotel Attalos)

Playing cards on the roof of our hotel

On Wednesday we were able to take a cruise to visit 3 Greek Islands. The Island of Hydra...

The Island of Poros...

The Island of Aegina...

We are at the airport in Athens to start our journey home. We have been blessed by our time in Slovakia and Greece and feel so grateful to have been a part of this Ridgecrest Team. Thanks for praying for us, supporting us financially and being a Christ-centered, missions-sending church. To the ends of the Earth...

Beach and Sounion (Temple of Poseidon)

Flea Market and the Acropolis

Greece

We have all finally arrived in Greece. At the airport today they were offering money for passengers who would stay back and go on a flight just a few hours later. Our group decided that would be a fine option for us and Marc, Rae, Lindsay, Mitch, Brad, and Dane stayed to go on the later flight so that we could use all the extra money for Greece this week. The flights went smooth but getting to the hotel was a little rocky. The first group met a lady on the bus coming straight to our hotel and she led us. The later group took the correct bus- but got a little lost trying to find the hotel. About an hour and a half later they arrived (pretty tired after carrying their luggage around Athens) and now we are all getting ready to go to dinner. All the luggage and people are here!

The Last Day

Yesterday was the last day of camp. It was a fun day, but also hard to say goodbye. There were lots of hugs and some tears.

This is Petra and her girls (Katka and Miska). Petra and her husband Ivan run the YMCA in Bystrica. We absolutely loved working with their family this week. They have such a passion for seeing the people of Slovakia come to know Christ. We will really miss them!

Around 4:00 on Friday, there was a closing ceremony that the parents were invited to. Each class shared something they learned this week, the kids received diplomas and we were all just able to fellowship. It was a great way to end the week and neat to be able to meet and talk to the parents. Here is the green class singing "The B-I-B-L-E"...

The Yellow Class singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes"...

The Red Class doing "The Hokey Pokey"...

The students presented us with a sweet gift. They all put their handprints and names on a banner.

The Staff Girls. We LOVED getting to know each of these Slovak girls over this past week. They were wonderful to work with and so helpful. We will miss them!

The Staff Boys. They gave each of us from RBC a YMCA shirt as a gift.

We had an awesome week and were able to plant seeds and help lay the groundwork for English/Jesus Camps for years to come. We look forward to hearing about how those seeds grow as they are watered. We were extremely blessed to be a part of the lives of everyone we interacted with this week. We truly saw a glimpse of heaven in the way we worked with all of the Slovak leaders. It's amazing to see people from different places come together and worship the God we serve. We had such an amazing time in Slovakia this year with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. To God be the Glory.

We are now at the airport getting ready to fly to Athens. Here is the team around 9:00 am enjoying Starbucks about an hour before our plane leaves.

Thanks for being a part of the mission!

Thursday

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day here. The week sure went fast! I am sure it will be tough to say goodbye, but hopefully we will see our new friends again someday. Tomorrow we will have our last day of camp, a celebration with the parents and then a "staff party" for all of the American and Slovak Helpers. We will also evaluate the week to discuss strengths and weaknesses of this week to use for future camps. Today was another successful day!

We has special "angels" today. Each person at the camp, drew a name of someone else out of a basket. That person was your angel and you had to come up with something special for that person. It could be a gift, hug, special gesture. Just something thoughtful. Dane was Mitch's angel and he made him a fishing pole with craft materials (with a worm on the hook and all)!

Ela is one of our students this week. She drew Marc's name and wrote him a sweet note and gave him a special gift that she made.

We were also able to enjoy the town a little this evening.

Several of us also got to go rafting down a river near Banska. It was quite an adventure.