Jardons: Update from Montenegro

Dear friends and family ~ Man has it been an incredible week! In the midst of having free internet that we walk past multiple times a day we had such an intense week there was no time to use it. On average most of our students stayed up until between 3 and 5 AM and only to get up for breakfast by 8 and class at 9!!! All we could say was thank God for free unlimited coffee during our breakfast time!

Here is a recap of our first week of English camp that semi-officially ended today (Saturday) and the second week of English camp with 30 new campers will begin tomorrow. We are savoring the few hours this evening and tomorrow morning to catch up on life outside of English camp. About 26 campers arrived last Sunday throughout the day. The week was set up with Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday having different themes: Hope, Tragedy, Pursuit and Hero in corresponding order. The mornings started out with the Serbian students in class for 1 hour learning about that theme. That was followed by SpeakUp groups (SpeakUp is the name of the English camps and you can find more information about our camps at www.gotospeakup.com). SpeakUp groups consisted of two female American students and two male American students and about 8 Serbian students. Each day we played a game, put together a skit or did something else creative to get the students to practice their English conversation as well as continue focusing on the theme for the day. After the SpeakUp time was tutor time. This was when the SpeakUp groups broke into guys and girls and the groups separately discussed in greater depth the theme for the day with an opportunity for them to share any personal experiences with having hope, experiencing tragedy, pursuing something and finding a hero in their story. The rest of the afternoon was time to just hang out with the Serbian students and get to know them and their story better. We then met back for dinner and each night was followed with a fun activity: Olympic night, game night, dance night, scavenger hunt night and talent show night! And right in the middle of the week on Wednesday we went on an excursion with the students where we traveled for 2 hours by boat on the Adriatic Sea to a small beach where we spent the day exploring.

We have been staying in Risan, Montenegro which is essentially "the bay". It is a bay off the Adriatic Sea. Every morning I wake up, open the blinds and see the Adriatic Sea sparkling with the rays of the morning sun. It is so beautiful! Risan is a very small but ancient town. It is actually one of the oldest towns in Montenegro dating back to the third century BC. It is a 2 minute walk from our hotel to the main part of town where there is about 6 café's that are built off the bay… it shocks me every time I sit down for coffee and someone at the table next to me takes off their shirt and jumps literally off their chair into the sea (see picture below). About 30 minutes away from Risan is a town called Kotor which is another small ancient town dating back to the sixth century AD. There is yet again a fortress, it seems every city we visit has a fortress of some kind that was used back in certain wars. It cost 2 Euros (about $3) to hike to the top which was exactly what we did. The view was so beautiful of the old city!

Well I hope this e-mail gives you a good idea of what we've been doing every day for the past week and what we will do for one more week here in Montenegro and then we just have a few more days and we will already be traveling back home!! It's crazy to think yesterday marked our being here for one month! I hope you all are enjoying your summer and we can't wait to see you or talk to you more when we return!

First picture: the view from our balcony, can you believe this is right below our very eyes every morning!

Second picture: the café I get a cappuccino at almost every day, see how close the Sea is!

Third picture: Left to Right: Serbian friend Aleksandar, Adam, Crusade volunteer Matt, Serbian friend Goran

Fourth picture: Left to Right: Serbian friend Milena (Mi-lay-na), Crusade staff Stephanie, Serbian friend Tanja (Tan-ya), Andrea