intern training

fletch, adam, and i were in the czech republic last week for our annual intern training.

70 josiah venture interns and staff met in vienna to begin "the amazing race."

we broke up into our country teams and spent the next two and a half days racing around vienna, budapest, bratislava; while completing different tasks that led us to the end of the race in malenovice. along the way we got to see a lot of beautiful places.










here is our team, "latviamanda!" amanda joined our team for the amazing race. she is the music intern in czech this summer and she will be joining us in latvia to help with our music camp in july.

it was a blast! the goal of the race was to break down barriers on the teams and to have purposefully stressful situations so that our "true colors" would show. teams will then enter the summer knowing each other and how to work well together.

during the training at malenovice, dave patty spoke on a four characteristics that Jesus wanted His disciples to have before He sent them out. one of the talks was on Matthew 3:6-10; and focused on repentance. in repentance we verbally confess our sin as it is seen in God's eyes, immerse it in the completed work of Christ on the cross, and turn ourselves away from the sin and turn to God. after the talk we spent time praying for the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the sin in our lives. i wrote down a laundry list of junk that was in my life, and as i repented of those things i experienced freedom! crazy how that works, huh? im thankful for it!

another highlight from the conference was getting to see a long lost friend, nigel kelly.

nigel was a summer intern the first time i came to latvia in 2001 and now he is studying at dallas theological seminary. he is spending the summer traveling around europe to visit different ministries and see what God is doing in europe and where he might be a good fit. he will be with us in latvia for all of july, so we are excited to have him as part of our camp team. you can read more about his trip here.