Success vs. Failure, God's Above It All
Oh boy. It just keeps getting harder and harder to summarize what God is doing here through Fusion in Slovakia.
We had a total of 3 camps this summer, two of which were based in Slovakia and one based in Hungary. Our first camp was summarized in my last post and in that same post I had asked for prayers for our second camp in Hungary. Hungary had a lot of obstacles... but it was just as successful as the other two this summer! Our team faced challenges in every area, around every corner, from the beginning to the end of every day at this camp, but we carried on.
God had put this camp on my heart a few months ago with these goals in mind:
1. To build up the local leaders in Fusion Senec by taking them on a "mission trip" to serve but also to have intentional time to encourage and develop their leadership skills.
2. To build these leaders up so that they could be a part of a new youth group in Senec.
3. To share the idea of Fusion in Hungary, and have our students practice sharing their faith and practicing leadership roles in practical ways.
These were the goals that drove me through most of the obstacles that led up to this camp. This is what kept me hopeful... 3 weeks before we were to leave for Hungary this is where we stood:
1. We had 5 students signed up.
2. 3 students were atheists, 1 omnist, and 1 Christian.
3. The 1 Christian student moved to Denmark for school this month, so he couldn't help with starting a new youth group.
4. Only half the students were musical.
5. Our main guy leader was unable to come.
So. It was very clear that God had some very different plans in mind for this camp than I did, but I believed that God had put this camp into motion. Nonetheless, it was our job to do our best to share Christ with these kids.
We had two days between our first and second camps. In those two days we scrambled like crazy to get supplies and equipment together, to purchase bus and train tickets, and to make food preparations for the week. (Our team of interns were the sole leadership on the Slovak side of this camp.) Somehow we managed to get to Hungary with only a handful of ticket mishaps and missed trains. The camp started the next day. With the awesome JV team in Hungary, the final product of this camp looked like this:
Team Time
Devotions
Band Practice
Lunch
Welcome Hungarian kids
Workshops
Activities
Dinner
Evening Program
Discussion Groups
*on the left is Brayden teaching bass workshop
So it was a Fusion Day Camp thing that no one in Slovakia has ever done before, and it worked our amazingly! Our intern team and the Hungarian team worked very well together and I could not be more thankful for how much of a joy it was to serve alongside them!
*on the left is at the park where we held activities some days.
During the week we had countless attacks by the enemy... We had a Slovak student request to go home for fear of her health and anxiety issues... we had shortages of food. We had noise complaints. We had broken showers. We had missing speaker cables. We had students wandering out late at night. We had students uninterested in our evening messages. We had random sickness that threatened to bring our team down.
However, in spite of ALL of these potential set backs, God chose to take this time to prove how completely helpless we are on our own and how He alone is stronger than all things. He redeemed every seemingly wrong scenario.
These are the great things that we were able to take away from this experience in Hungary:
1. 2 Slovak students received their first Bibles.
2. Students heard the Gospel SEVERAL times throughout the week.
3. Discussion groups were fruitful!
4. We saw some of the hardest students open up to their fears and doubts about God and ask questions.
5. Hungarian students fell in love with Fusion, possibly opening the door for this ministry in their country.
6. God protected our team through all these trials and proved Himself stronger than I have ever felt God to be.
These were just a few of the things that I am taking away from this camp. There is so much that I still can not share because I don't have the words or the time to explain it to you. I have never in my life been so incredibly in awe of our Father, His might and sovereignty, and joy. His redemption and love flooded into our intern team after this camp as we worked through the ways that Satan had tried to attack us, and we made it through strong and firm on our cornerstone.
We had a total of 3 camps this summer, two of which were based in Slovakia and one based in Hungary. Our first camp was summarized in my last post and in that same post I had asked for prayers for our second camp in Hungary. Hungary had a lot of obstacles... but it was just as successful as the other two this summer! Our team faced challenges in every area, around every corner, from the beginning to the end of every day at this camp, but we carried on. God had put this camp on my heart a few months ago with these goals in mind:
1. To build up the local leaders in Fusion Senec by taking them on a "mission trip" to serve but also to have intentional time to encourage and develop their leadership skills.
2. To build these leaders up so that they could be a part of a new youth group in Senec.
3. To share the idea of Fusion in Hungary, and have our students practice sharing their faith and practicing leadership roles in practical ways.
*Some of our team: Slovakia Interns, Hungary Interns, and Slovaks
These were the goals that drove me through most of the obstacles that led up to this camp. This is what kept me hopeful... 3 weeks before we were to leave for Hungary this is where we stood:
1. We had 5 students signed up.
2. 3 students were atheists, 1 omnist, and 1 Christian.
3. The 1 Christian student moved to Denmark for school this month, so he couldn't help with starting a new youth group.
4. Only half the students were musical.
5. Our main guy leader was unable to come.
So. It was very clear that God had some very different plans in mind for this camp than I did, but I believed that God had put this camp into motion. Nonetheless, it was our job to do our best to share Christ with these kids.
We had two days between our first and second camps. In those two days we scrambled like crazy to get supplies and equipment together, to purchase bus and train tickets, and to make food preparations for the week. (Our team of interns were the sole leadership on the Slovak side of this camp.) Somehow we managed to get to Hungary with only a handful of ticket mishaps and missed trains. The camp started the next day. With the awesome JV team in Hungary, the final product of this camp looked like this:
Team Time
Devotions
Band Practice
Lunch
Welcome Hungarian kids
Workshops
Activities
Dinner
Evening Program
Discussion Groups
*on the left is Brayden teaching bass workshop
So it was a Fusion Day Camp thing that no one in Slovakia has ever done before, and it worked our amazingly! Our intern team and the Hungarian team worked very well together and I could not be more thankful for how much of a joy it was to serve alongside them!
*on the left is at the park where we held activities some days.
During the week we had countless attacks by the enemy... We had a Slovak student request to go home for fear of her health and anxiety issues... we had shortages of food. We had noise complaints. We had broken showers. We had missing speaker cables. We had students wandering out late at night. We had students uninterested in our evening messages. We had random sickness that threatened to bring our team down.
However, in spite of ALL of these potential set backs, God chose to take this time to prove how completely helpless we are on our own and how He alone is stronger than all things. He redeemed every seemingly wrong scenario.
These are the great things that we were able to take away from this experience in Hungary:
1. 2 Slovak students received their first Bibles.
2. Students heard the Gospel SEVERAL times throughout the week.
3. Discussion groups were fruitful!
4. We saw some of the hardest students open up to their fears and doubts about God and ask questions.
5. Hungarian students fell in love with Fusion, possibly opening the door for this ministry in their country.
6. God protected our team through all these trials and proved Himself stronger than I have ever felt God to be.
These were just a few of the things that I am taking away from this camp. There is so much that I still can not share because I don't have the words or the time to explain it to you. I have never in my life been so incredibly in awe of our Father, His might and sovereignty, and joy. His redemption and love flooded into our intern team after this camp as we worked through the ways that Satan had tried to attack us, and we made it through strong and firm on our cornerstone.
One of our Slovak students sharing about his experience at camp that week at our final concert.
The wonderful Noemi that I got to meet at camp. This beautiful girl sang one of my favorite songs with me in the evening band on night.
This is the last day of camp, after our concert and before saying goodbyes. What an amazing week to be a part of!
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