Our Slovenia Team is About to Begin Camp

This past Wednesday we hopped on a plane headed to Slovenia. After a little stop in Warsaw along the way, and a stop at McDonalds at the Warsaw airport (we’re so American), we arrived at our destination of the capitol city of Ljubljana.

There we had a sweet reunion with the pastor of the Maribor church, and president of JV Slovenia, Andrej. From Ljubljana we drove about an hour to Celje where we met up with three other American teams (from Washington, Florida, and Tennessee) to begin our camp orientation. We’re part of a big week in Slovenia, as there will be four JV camps happening in four different cities this next week. To give you a perspective of what that means for the country of Slovenia, Slovenia has 1,500 evangelical believers in it, and by adding the 75 believers contained on our four American teams, we raised the percent of evangelicals in Slovenia by 5%!

It has been a busy last three days. We’ve been trained on many different subjects, begun learning our camp dance and a few of our songs, and had some significant times in prayer. I’m always impressed with the JV orientation model, and once again I’m thankful for all the work that has gone into preparing our teams for the camp to come.

While our team has worked hard, we certainly have found time for fun along the way. We’ve made it out for ice cream each night of orientation, laughed a lot (jet-lag is to blame for some of this), and were even able squeeze in a visit the Celje castle this afternoon. Add to that the blessing of being with Heidi Ansiel once again, along with many of the friends we’ve made here in Slovenia down through the years. Our hearts are so thankful for the chance to be here, so thank you again for sending us!

It is now 11:30pm the night before camp begins. Tomorrow we will be up bright and early for breakfast and then we’re off to the school where we’ll be hosting our Fusion camp. We’ll spend the whole day getting the school transformed from classrooms and into a space where we can learn instruments and sleep and live for the next 8 days! Please pray for us as much will need to be done before the students arrive at 2pm and camp will officially begin.

I’ve heard we won’t have wifi at the school, so this may be the only mid-trip update, but if I’m able to connect I’ll certainly share more. Thank you so much for keeping us in your prayers!

Sincerely, Nick