Experiencing God's Work

I want to thank you all for your prayers this week regarding my illness - I have recovered remarkably quickly!  It is only a small cough now, whereas before I could barely get out of bed.  I know it was God who gave me strength to recover quicker than expected.

On Monday of this past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to a nearby village (Benešov) to teach in the Elementary School.  The school has one class of each grade level, and I was able to teach English in the three highest classes.  The students and staff were very inviting and we had lots of fun creating skits, having conversations, and the kids enjoyed learning some American slang and idioms! I was also able to visit each class because the teachers thought it was a good chance for the children to breifly practice English with a native speaker.  The best response was from the youngest class - when they heard I speak English they said "Hello! One, two, three, four, five!"  Then smiled so proudly for being able to recite all their English vocabulary. 

Benešov Elementary School

I also was able to visit the Elementary School in Letovice this week with the youth pastor and some club leaders to invite the students for LetFest (a city-wide "camp" with English classes, sports, workshops, and seminars).  We visited all the classes of the oldest students and some classes of the younger students as well.  The youth pastor had a great idea this year to take a picture in each class and put the picture on the LetFest Facebook page.  The class with the most "likes" on their picture will receive a basket filled with treats the beginning of next week.  This promotes the LetFest Facebook page so the students can become familiar with the page and hopefully learn about activities they can be apart of for LetFest.  Before we went into the classrooms, the leaders and I guessed there would only be about 20-30 "likes" average on each picture, but we were wonderfuly surprised to see the students' reaction to the competition.  As of right now, the highest class has about 530 "likes" and EVERY class has more than our initial guess!  On top of that, the youth pastor told me that there have been an additional 50+ "likes" on the LetFest Facebook page, which means more people know about LetFest and are interested in the activities!  God certainly has his hand on this event!

One of the Pictures from the Elementary School Visit

On Tuesday and Thursday I was at the church for club.  I am excited with the increasing amount of girls who are coming to club since it is generally a pretty guy-heavy group.  We did many things on club days, but some favorites this week were creating pictures with stickers, a ping-pong turnament, and a dance party!

Some Girls at Club 

I taught one Adult's English Class this week on Wednesday, and we did the topic of food.  We focused on learning different daily meals and flavors like spicy, sour, sweet, savory, and salty.  Teaching food is one of my favorite lessons because I always do Jelly Bean taste-testing and have the students describe the flavor, so it is a delicious and educational activity!  We also created placemats with food we eat at different meals and described the meal to the rest of the group.

With Our Placemats

We also had ReStart club this past Friday.  I love being with these kids as they study the Bible and then play many games together.  Most of these children have parents who attended the church, so it is great fellowship for these kids as they learn teamwork skills since they are the ones who will be the next leaders in the church and youth group.  I cannot help but admire each of their talents and how they help each other and make a great team together. 

With Some Kids at ReStart

Over the weekend, I was invited to join my friend and her family to tour a nearby cave!  It was a very cool experience.  Before the tour, my friend's father asked the tour guide (a girl about my age) if she knows English so I could also understand facts about the cave - so for the whole tour, I walked next to the guide and after she explained th facts in Czech, she would tell me everything again in English! The cave was pretty big, so during the time we were just walking, the guide asked me why I was in Czech.  I explained I am here helping at the church in Letovice and also mentioned LetFest.  The tour guide said "Oh yes, I know about LetFest," and she continued to explain that another tour guide she works with has told her about LetFest.  We quickly found out we have a friend in common and enjoyed talking more with each other as we walked through the cave. 

In Front of the Cave 

Inside the Cave 

I loved experiencing God's work this week.  From recovering from being sick relatively quickly, seeing children get excited about LetFest at the Elementary School, watching new children join in on club activities and ReStart, to meeting someone 30 minutes away who knows about LetFest - God's hand was definitely on all these experiences!  I am very excited for LetFest to begin and for the Americans arrive!  This week will be busy preparing for LetFest and lots of fun as the teams all come and work together for one purpose.