TeenServe ......WOW! What a Summer!!

With Jesus and his angels pushing, and Satan trying everything that he could to stop us, we successfully made it back home in one piece from Iowa Falls, IA and Memphis, TN. The heat and humidity was .....bad, as I expected for the middle of the summer. Chris, Jaci, their kids, and the youth group that they brought along from Arizona really had a fun time with the heavy air in TN.


<>ABOVE~~~TeenServe's safety motto this year was, like Geico, "So easy a caveman could do it". A fellow staffer and I dressed as caveman and made quite a scene when that line was mentioned at the evening program each week. Tons of fun!!



THE COFFEE HOUSE
Along with the awesome music and delicious food, 4 different contests were held in the CH throughout the week. We had, by far the most creative group of people for the contests in Memphis. Below are some crazy people in the twin contest portraying Hans and Franz, as well as fitting into the same pair of pants. That was only a bit of the creativity that showed up.

We even had the king himself, "gospElvis", show up!!!

THE EVENING PROGRAM
Everyday of the week a program was held in the gym of the school. Each one started out with a slideshow of pictures of the different crews working on their respective houses. The band would follow that up with some awesome worship songs. And finally the speaker, Andy Tilly, would speak an awesome message. Below are the pics of the bands of each week and Andy.

Above - The band in Memphis, TN: Fourth in the Fire (http://www.myspace.com/fourthinthefire), consisting of: Chris Uttecht on vocals and lead guitar, Jaci Uttecht on vocals, The Funkmaster5000 on bass, and Atsu on drums(he's a Japanese drummer and an amazing person)

Above....The band in Iowa Falls, IA: Matt and Suzie K (left side top and bottom) http://www.mattandsuziek.com/, then Justin on electric guitar (he has recorded guitar stuff with the band Superchick) in the upper right, and then the Funkmaster5000 on bass once again.

The speaker: Andy Tilly (VERY cool guy)
http://www.andytilly.com/

SUMMARY OF THE SUMMER
We started out in Iowa Falls, IA and hosted two weeks of camp at Iowa Falls - Alden HS. The second week was named "the annual family week" seeing that most of the relatives from the Czech side of the family came as workcampers, volunteers, and troubleshooters. It was a great week. The pic below is of my bro Tim looking on to my computer/music/sound duties in the coffee house as I drink a smoothie.
We then headed out on the long journey to an interesting part of the country: Memphis, TN. If you put aside the ceiling that fell in on one of the houses that we were working on, the high speed chase through the school grounds, people looking to steal cars in the early hours of the morning, and the "women" that approached one of our three night watchmen in the night hours, everything went well!! It was a tough journey through the week and a half that we were there but I have named it one of my favorite weeks of camp ever. We had an amazing group of 241 campers come and we had tons of fun. One youth group even brought 54 people. Some of my favorite times were spent playing ultimate Frisbee and having crazy contests in the coffee house. Below are the men who made the Hideaway and CH stage happen: (LtoR)Funk, Me, and Roddy.

Overall.....quite the amazing summer. Jesus did extraordinary things in people's hearts and we did some extraordinary things to people's houses. It was AWESOME!!!!
Until next time.....see ya lata!