Swiss Air

Well it's official. I have filled out all of my forms and the such and now I am accepted as a short term missions worker with Janz team ministries. I am going to Switzerland for a couple weeks at the end of July to work at a camp. My role will be that of counsellor, which means I will be leading a group of young boys between the ages of...well, I'm sure I was told at some point, but I can't remember and it seems to have been missed on every email I've ever gotten on the subject. Suffice it to say that it is regular camp age kids, 10-15 years old or somewhere in that range. The purpose of the camp ostensibly is to teach the kids English, but there is much more to it than that. The man organising everything (Dan Bartholomew if you curious) said it best when he sent the following list of reasons for this camp:
-To encourage the faith of young people.
-To encourage the Faith in France and Switzerland, promoting the Gospel, good citizenship and international fraternity between the nations and the international Church (think of the future generations especially, since we are dealing with kids)
-To bring a fantastic Camp experience to kids.
-To do something worthwhile and lasting in a different part of the world
-To love some frenchies for a week! (I am a frenchie, so it is okay for me to say dat, (born in Quebec))
-To have a ball with kids God and each other
-To use the different cooking, organisational, leadership, relational, preaching, adminstrative, technological, dramatic, linguistic, artistic, musical, gifts that God has given us.
-To enjoy another part of the world that God has made for us.
-To be in a French part of the world and use your french skills or acquire more
-To get a taste for missions
-To LOVE PEOPLE
-To teach kids English
-To meet Christians from another part of the world and serve them
-To enjoy life

So it sounds like my summer is going to be pretty exciting. At this point I need prayer for a few different things: That the money would become available. I have to buy the plane ticket ASAP, and that's about $2000, so that's going to be pricey, plus it's another $500 for costs while I'm there. I will be sending out a prayer letter/fundraising letter soon. For tax decuctable receipts you will send money to Janz Team Ministries (2121 Henderson HWY Winnipeg MB R2G 1P8), making sure to designate the money for me, however you want to do that (maybe include a little note or letter or something). If you don't care about that, just send the money to me directly and I will be very grateful.
I also need prayer for preparing myself mentally and spiritually (I'm an amazing phsysical specimen already, so I'm good there...). It is no small responsibility I am taking on, and I have a tendency to take things much lighter than I should, and that could be very bad. This is going to be a difficult couple of weeks in that we are dealing with French speaking children and my French is a little rusty (je suis un ananas vert?), so there will be challenges there. Also, as most of you know I'm not a huge camp sort of person. I enjoy camping when I can just sit back and chill around a fire, maybe get a round or two of golf in or something, but formally working in a camp like that is a bit of a stretch for me. So I need prayer that I can prepare myself and be ready to show those kids a real Christ that goes across borders.
We also need prayer that a few more cooks are found so that we can feed the children.
But there is some praise - specifically that the camp is full kids-wise. The number of kids we were going for (25) is the number we have registered, and it's not even quite April yet. This is pretty amazing because this is the first year a camp like this is being held in Switzerland and people weren't sure how many kids we would get willing to commit to a camp. Praise God for that!
I think I forgot to mention what exact dates I'll be gone. The plan at the moment is to leave on July 15th and return July 31st (though I may be persuaded to spend another day or two just to chill and see at least something in Europe before I return, maybe find a hostel to stay at for a night or something), which means I'll be gone for my birthday (July 21) and my older brother's birthday (July 28, and he isn't allowed to have candles on his cake).
I'm excited!