Presentation and Youth retreat

The last week has been a whirl wind of activities. We started off the week with our normal classes, mid week Jeremy had a presentation, and we ended the week with a youth retreat and Sunday service given by the confermation class.

Jeremy's presentation, Racism: red, white, black, was a complete success. It was a heavy topic, but Jeremy was finding that people were curious about racism in the US. There were many different ways Jeremy could have given this presentation. He could have talked only about racism aggainst black americans, or he could have talked about the civil rights movement, but he descided to take it a different way. In the US racism is a fluid thing, and historically the people that we racisist aggainst changes every 40 years with whomever,regardless of their skin color, becomes a threat to the culture of the people in power. Most people don't think about all the different groups, so it was good that he showed how the country was racisist toward one group, but only until a different group posed a threat. The presentation was given in English and was translated into Czech. Everyone who came seemed to enjoy it, and we have heard from others who where not there that people told them that they liked it, which is encouraging. 33 people came, ranging from high school students to pensioners. There were a few people we did not know, which was exciting because they has seen our posters. Anyway, it was an hour presentation and afterward a few people asked some really good questions, which means that Jeremy got them thinking not only about racism in the US, but also the racism here, and about what racism really is, and where is comes from.

This weekend we went with the confermation class to Veseli, which was a good time! We played games, ate food, went midnight sledding and planned what the students would do durning the service on Sunday. Saturday morning we were all giving the task of writing a journal entry for two brothers from a story in the the bible. Both where asked to help do work on the farm and the first one said he didnt want to help and then did and the second said he would help and then didn't. The conferments came up with some fun journal entries for each son which revolved around them wanting to sleep or go on a date or to the pub. Jeremy and I also wrote a journal for each son. The fun part is that we tried our best to write it in czech. I think we did well and the kids definatly enjoyed our "funny czech".