Nate Hampton In Ostrava: Staying Busy And Eating Tacos

School Visits

Over the last two weeks I have been very busy with studying not only the Bible and the Czech language but also United States History and the American criminal justice system. I have gotten the opportunity to visit two new schools and meet many new teens. About 500 meters away from my apartment and the church there is a Christian high school which several of the teens from the youth group attend. Petr and I have been trying to get the schools to invite me to speak with the students so that I could get to know them a little bit and that I would have the opportunity to invite them to the youth group, conversation groups, or even to the English Camp this summer. I had offered to speak with them about specific topics and the Christian school asked if I would speak with them about United States History for about 25 minutes. When Petr told me this, I asked him what part of American History they would like me to speak about and he said that it would be good to give them an overview of all of American History. I have my bachelor's degree in United States History so I have a decent understanding and knowledge of US History but trying to cram all of that history into 25 minutes is difficult. I spend about 25 hours studying a little bit and preparing PowerPoint slides with pictures and maps that would be perfect for the talk as well as just pondering over what to talk about and what to leave out. The talk went very well but it was a lot of work. Several days later, I was invited to another school to speak with four different classes about criminal law in the United States. Having double majored in Political Science as well as US History I was able to talk on this topic as well. Thankful, I didn't have to spend as much time reviewing information on the law mostly because I only needed to prepare something for 10-15 minutes of talking the rest of each class period would be spent answering questions about the law or myself that the students might have. This also went well and I even had a student ask me if it would be ok for him to come and visit the youth group. In the picture below you will see a picture of the student whose name is Pavel. He is sitting next to me in the picture. Pray that he would come and visit the youth group and that he would be attracted by what he hears and what he sees. Pray also that teens from the group would make him or anyone else new feel welcome when they come. Please continue to pray that I would get more opportunities to visit schools before the school year ends at the end of June. It means more work for me but it is well worth the work if it opens up opportunities to build relationships and provide opportunities to talk about Christ.

Youth Group Bigger and Better

Two Fridays ago, the youth group enjoyed our first meeting with beautiful weather and longer days. This meant that we could finally get outside of the church and play some games outside. Táňa organized a game of Bigger and Better. For those of you that aren't familiar with the game, this is how it is played. First, the people are divided into several teams. Then each team is given a small almost worthless item, like a penny or something. Next they are instructed to go through the community and ask people for something bigger or better than what they have. You would maybe trade the penny for a pen that someone doesn't want anymore. Then you would take the pen to someone else and maybe trade it for a little toy car. I have played this game before and ended up with an old computer. I think for Czech people, this is pretty strange to have strangers come and ask them to trade them something. So our group set out in search of the something bigger and better than the pencil that we each began with. Below are some pictures of the groups and what they ended up getting for their pencil. MY GROUP WON! But after the activity I led a discussion about what Christ's death on the cross means for each one of us. This discussion clearly created a bit of a divide in the group between the believers and the non-believers which I think is a good thing occasionally. The Christians within the group said that they saw it as God's love for them, they thought about eternity in Heaven, and they thought about their sins being forgiven. I didn't force the non-believers to answer but there was some obvious discomfort because they realized that they didn't know what to say. Please continue to pray for these kids that they would continue to come and that the Lord would soften their hearts so that they would have a desire to know Him. Many of the teens who are not believers don't have a problem with Christianity or with Jesus Christ but they think that they don't need to think about these things at this point in their lives. Pray that God would open their eyes to the urgency of the message and how short life really is. This past Friday night, I spoke about encouraging one another and about how and why the early church would do this. I then chose a few of the people from the group to acknowledge some of the great things that I have seen them doing and a few of the teens followed suit but overall I think that many of the teens haven't spent much time encouraging others and may not have been encouraged much themselves in the past. I will be continuing this for weeks to come. Pray that the teens would be looking for things to encourage one another about as they feel the joy of being encouraged themselves. I really want this to be a loving environment.

Kuba and Julian got a highlighter for their pencil

Dominika, Eliška, and Barča got a bracelet, candy bar, and lighter for their pencil.

Terka, Sabča, Klára, and I got a bike. (We had to return it afterward)

Lord of the Rings Movie Marathon

Several months ago while meeting with the leadership team for Youth Revolution, the teens mentioned that they would like to do a Lord of the Rings Movie Marathon. I had done this several years back with my brother and a couple of friends and it was a rough 12 hours because we didn't just watch he theatrical version but the Extended Editions. An hour into the Two Towers I was shaking from too much coffee and felt terrible. I knew what these kids were in for but they still wanted to go for it. So on Saturday morning at 10:30, six of the teens from the youth group (another joined us later) showed up at my apartment with snacks and comfortable clothes to watch the movies together. I wanted to make the experience a little more special so I made lots of taco meat and cut up toppings. Only one of the teens had ever had tacos and I think it is because he has visited the States before so for the rest this was a new experience. I also found out that the CEFC youth group would be having their youth retreat at the same time so I worked it out with Matt Carter to have the two groups Skype with one another. It was an awkward and fun experience to watch the two groups of teens interact. The Czech teens who usually speak English very well were a bit tongue tied and shy and some of the CEFC youth were a bit shy as well. It did however give the Czech teens a chance to see some of the teens from CEFC that they have met over the years at the English Camp and say hello. I also got a chance to see and talk to a few teens that I haven't seen in a while and miss. Pray that as Jim Caley prepares another team for the English Camp this summer that the Lord would be preparing the hearts of the teens here to be able to see and hear how the Lord has worked in the hearts of people their age and a little older and have a desire for the same kind of relationship with Jesus. Pray also for the hearts of the American team members as they prepare to come that they would make themselves clean vessels for the Lord's message to those they come across here. Below are some pictures from the movie marathon. I took a picture after each film to show the decent into discomfort as the movies went on.