I flew back to Czech after Christmas and arrived to the airport in Prague on December 29th. I hurried from the airport catching the bus and subways making my way to the train station, dragging along my overpacked suitcase behind me the whole way. I was moving quickly to catch the first train back to Letovice because the sleepover had started! Each year, our youth club has a big New Years sleepover party. There were 100 kids at the sleepover, and I was so excited to see everyone again after being gone for three weeks. Kids from both the Letovice and Boskovice club came together for the sleepover party, and I was grateful for any jet lag I had that kept my energy rolling into the early morning hours. Traditionally, around 3am the kids start to settle down for a couple hours of sleep before breakfast, however, we realized around 4:30am that the kids had hoarded energy built up from the entirety of their Christmas break. Coming to the conclusion that we would unlikely get much sleep, a friend who recently started coming to club activities and I took the opportunity to chat and share spiritual testimonies. There were so many kids at the sleepover that it was hard to spend time with everyone, but I was really impressed with the new girls who started coming to club while I was in America. After I arrived, the couple of new little girls came up to me and one shook my hand saying...
"Hello Kendra! The other girls and leaders have told us about you. We are so excited to meet you!"
Many times the kids are very shy when we first meet them, and they use formal greetings with the leaders for weeks before becoming comfortable at the youth club, so the quick friendship of these girls was a blessing in the hype of the sleepover!
Sleepover Group
It always amazes me at how quickly the four hours of club time seems to go by! Occasionally, when parents come into club, they remark at how loud and crazy it is, but I love the noise! I love hearing the laughter and energy of the kids. I love having eight different kids ask me a dozen questions at one time. I love the smiles and the friendships, and I love watching how God is sharing His love with these kids through us. What the parents may call "chaos" I think of as the "heartbeat."
With more and more little girls coming to club, I am getting lots of practice braiding hair! My phone is filled with pictures of the woven hair on the backs of the little girls' heads as they always ask what it looks like! One of the little girls asked me, "Kendra, don't you want to be a hairdresser?" I laughed as I thought about my self-taught french braiding skills and answered, "Why would I do that when I already get to do all this at club?" The girl seemed pleased I didn't take her advice in a new career profession.
Our club room in Boskovice has become somewhat like an open mini-gym for these active kids. Many days, they are running around the room playing hide-n-seek tag, tumbling over mattresses and sofa cushions, and tossing soft balls at each other from across the room. The club room will look more like a mini-gym with our newest Elim toy - a blow-up soccer field! We are waiting for the final nets to complete the field, but everyone is looking forward to min-tournaments on the indoor field. (Pictures of the field to come soon!)
Boskovice Friends
I started the first Kid's English Class after Christmas break telling the kids that "Santa" had sent 10 new books for them to read. Their eyes grew wide and a couple students even cheered aloud! They are completely addicted to Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie series. I think they may have been more excited about the new books than they were about the candy I brought back for them. I am excited to read more with these kids, and I am glad they are excited about reading and rereading these books!
Partner Re-reading
Teen English Class is pushing me to be a better teacher. The small office space we have in Boskovice is stretching my creativity in designing activities that work in the space. The age differences between the students is only 13 - 16 years, but in Czech public schools, students really only start learning beyond the basics of English around age 12. This makes lesson planning a little more challenging as there is really only a three to four year gap between the students, however, the younger students are just starting to really comprehend conversational English while the older students can read and dissect magazine articles! It is encouraging that the students keep coming back to class, and they seem to be becoming more and more comfortable with each other as I am still figuring out how to best teach this group of diverse learners.
A Full Classroom
While this Czech winter is failing in comparison to the winters I have learned to endure in Minnesota, we are still getting some snow flurries on occasional mornings. The Littles learned the word "snow" this past week as we sang about the snow falling and building snowmen. I enjoy teaching the short English lessons to this group of early learners; yet, I can see that some of the most learning happens in the hour of free play I give the kids after the lesson. During this time, I get to individually play with the kids and encourage the lesson through their play as the moms get to take the moment to chat.
One mom told me that she was talking to her daughter before Little Linguists and was explaining to her daughter that I was in America and was back to Letovice to teach English. This three-year-old asked her mom about America, so the mom explained America is far away. The kids see me ride my bike many times to Littles class, so the little girl asked if I went to America "by bike?" The mom then explained to her daughter that I took an airplane.
Then, as we were leaving class last week, I was walking out with the little girl and her mom...
Mom: "We are going. Kendra is going too."
The toddler noticed my bike wasn't in the bike rack because I had walked to Littles, so she asked "Where's her airplane?"
Still Learning about Snowmen during Free Time
The youth pastor asked me to prepare the lesson on Friday Youth Group last week. I always love digging into a topic for youth group as I know God teaches me so much through the process also. As I started preparing for the lesson, God continued to bring me back to the 400 years of Silence between the Old and New Testaments. I thought "it's a hard topic for some of these kids. There is some history to cover with the topic, and many of them haven't yet made a decision for Christ or are new Christians - so would they understand the silence?" I tried starting with another topic - an easier theme, and still God brought me back to the 400 years of Silence, so I began preparing the lesson. On the Wednesday before I taught, I asked a couple girls in the youth group what they would like to hear me talk about on Friday (I was still ready to change the topic). One girl said, "Kendra, can you teach us how to hear God?" I immediately thought that the 400 years of Silence was going to be thrown out - how could I talk about God's Silence when these girls wanted to know how to HEAR Him? And then God whispered to my heart, "I spoke after 400 years, remember?" I went deeper into the study and focused the teaching on God's spoken words to the Israelites AFTER the 400 years of Silence at Jesus' baptism - "This is MY son." And it is through knowing Jesus that we get to hear the whispers of God on our heart.
I was most encouraged after the program when a 15-year-old came up to me and said, "that was a really good program, Kendra." I was a little awestruck as this student is usually distracted during the program and doesn't traditionally engage with what the speakers are saying, so he was the last person I was expecting to get feedback from! I gave the praise back to God, knowing that it must have been His words that touched this student.
The youth pastor's wife was ill during the last sleepover, and the little girls were sad that they didn't see her, so she planned a Girls Pajama Party! It was an "all-girls" party with nail painting, hair braiding, facials, dancing, and musical movies. I loved spending time with these ten little girls and really giving them all the attention. Before the sleepover, I knew about a couple of the girls who didn't get along well together, but they were both planning to come. I didn't know what to expect, but I prayed and hoped that the sleepover would be a bonding experience for all the girls. By the end of the night, these two gals were rolling on their sleeping bags laughing and joking with each other like they were best friends. They had just misunderstood each other before, and I am excited to see how God will continue to work through their friendship.
Though sometimes it seems a little chaotic at times with all the different activities and kids, I can't imagine life without it. God has given me a heartbeat for these kids and for this community.