National Holiday Camp | Líchovy, Czechia

No matter how we have spent the rest of our holidays, everyone at the Czech Order of Malta Youth Team (ČMM) reminisced on the third week of August: a journey of 23 disabled guests and almost 40 volunteers to the beautiful and peaceful area of Líchovy, where our third ČMM summer camp took place.

The whole week was filled with exciting adventures, fun games and tricky tasks to find the mythical Atlantis. During this exhausting mission, we were lucky to have so many nice visitors with whom we could talk and relax. Among the visitors were the famous Czech paralympian Arnošt "Arny" Petráček, the brave shark diver Adam Lešikar or the priest and biologist Marko Orko Vácha. We were very pleased that the ever-smiling Sister Angelika Pintířová and the great actor Víťa Marčík were also there again.

On Wednesday, we went for a trip to the beautiful historic town of Písek. Equipped with hats, sunscreen and an abundance of water, we visited the regional stud farm, celebrated a Holy Mass in the beautiful Gothic Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary and in the afternoon played in the interactive live exhibition of the Písek malt house. Back at the camp, everything was already prepared for the so-called Silent Night - a spiritual evening with a procession and adoration.

On Thursday, our last day, we managed to solve the last riddles to finally discover the mysterious Atlantis. The reward for such a successful expedition was a great concert by the two rock bands "One more night" and "20 seconds and counting". The volunteers were really surprised how much all our dear disabled friends enjoyed the evening and what an incredibly great atmosphere they created!

After such a fulfilling and blessed week, it was very hard for us to say goodbye. The ČMM summer camps are just such an exceptional experience. During this week we spend so much time with each other talking and getting to know each other, so we always leave the camp as an even stronger team. Therefore, we are already looking forward to July 2023 and the fourth ČMM summer camp!