While I was in Minnesota over Christmas, I found a perfect t-shirt when I was out shopping with my mom. In bold, capital letters on the shirt is written "Chaos Coordinator". I showed my mom saying "Look! It's my job description!" Many people wonder how to describe what I do, and I have described my work in one run-on sentence as being "a multifaceted ministry as I share God's love to toddlers, kids, youth and adults through English Classes, volunteering with Elim (our free-time, after-school youth club), youth group, Bible Studies, connecting with the local church, participating in city outreach events, and leading various activities/camps/events." However, maybe it would be easier to respond simply by saying I am a "Chaos Coordinator"!
With that understanding of my recent revelation in my job description, it may be easier for you to understand why my blog is not precisely updated on the dot every other week. This time, however, I continued to let the blog slide to the back-burner and like a teakettle left boiling for too long, it irritated me that I had started and restarted this post nearly a dozen times, but never had the opportunity to finish writing.
This embarrassingly late post is credited to three set-backs:
1. An extra full week/weekend with a youth sleepover and some guest visitors
2. I got sick. Then, I got sick again.
3. A horrible case of writer's block...
After a month, the stories and pictures seem to just pile up! Enjoy a few stories from this past month, and I look forward to sharing more with you again soon.
In English Class, we finally completed our theme on Food. The students learned so much around the theme including food groups, flavors, restaurant terms, meals, places to buy food, dishes, food descriptions, recipe verbs, and American measurements. The students really enjoyed this theme and adding new vocabulary to their placemats each week. To finish the theme, I wanted the students to have a hands-on experience with American measurements, so I took my cooking measuring tools to the classroom along with bowls of popcorn, waffers, nuts, and candy! I then gave the students a recipe to create their own "trail mix" to eat while we watched a 5 minute short-movie. It was definitely a favorite activity and a great way to end the theme.
Making Trail Mix with American Measurements
Snack Time!
He didn't know I snapped this picture. After finishing the theme, he raised the placemat with all his vocabulary over his head and exclaimed, "We completed it!"
Displaying their placemats filled and overlapped with English terms! This project is a perfect example of Controlled Chaos.
We just started our new theme in English Class, and the kids are really excited about this new topic: Sports and Health! My translators and I felt it would build well off the food theme, and with spring weather encouraging the kids to spend time outside, it made sense to discuss sport vocabulary. This English Class is unlike any other I have taught in the past. Their level of English is exceptional, and yet they are easily distracted during activities. It is my hope and prayer that the sport's theme will give them an opportunity to use English in activities and games that they are already familiar with and will be able to focus on.
English Class Games
The toddlers in this Little Linguists group are bright little learners! Nearly all the kids could lead our "Hello" and "Bye-Bye" songs on their own - and some of them do as they start waving and singing before everyone has joined us in the circle! For these Littles, I know that repetition, movement, and singing is the way for them to really learn a new language. One of the moms asked me recently where I find all my material. I thought about it and said, "I guess some of it I see online, but mostly I know your toddler and I know what she likes and what she needs at this age to learn language, and I think of a way to meet that goal." I really enjoy being a part of this community of mothers and toddlers. I have become friends with some of the mothers and it is great for me to give them this time to connect with their child through singing and activities. Many of the toddlers know me by name, and a few affectionately call me "Teta" - the Czech term for "Auntie".
We sang a song about making fruit salad. One Little really caught onto the "yummy, yummy" part of the song, but the "fruit salad" part was too difficult for her to get. Fortunately, her mom jumped at the opportunity and with the same tune sang "vegetables" or "lunchtime" and her daughter sang back "yummy, yummy!" The mom was excited that the song wasn't just a catchy tune, but also could help encourage her daughter to eat her vegetables at lunch!
On average, we have about 50 kids and youth helpers come to our youth club in Letovice each open club day. Since we are located in the center of the city, the kids know they can pop into the building if they only have a short time, and we often have new kids explore what club has to offer, and they too quickly become familiar faces. Our vision is to create a safe environment for these kids and to be a light in the city, so it can be difficult when our building size limits the activities we can do. Right next to our current building, there is a disco-club for sale, and we love the large open space that the building offers. We know there will need to be some renovations to update the space for our kids, but we are really praying for this move to become a reality! Now, we are raising support to buy the disco-club, and we would love if you would also pray with us! (Feel free to write me to ask me more questions about this project if you want to be involved.)
Promoting the Fundraising
Kids playing at club
Club Sillies ;)
Now that the weather is getting nicer, we are talking advantage of using the outdoor yard!
On Tuesday evening, I quickly transition from running around with the kids at club to teaching English for this group of adults. They are a fun group and very quick to ask questions - sometimes questions I am not sure how to answer! Like, "why do you say 'bow' for a person (the man gave a bow), but you say 'bow' for an object (like a bow and arrow) when both the person bowing and the bowing wood are making the same motion?" If anyone has an idea for how to clarify this, I would appreciate it because before this discussion with the adults, I had not even noticed the inconsistency. Discussions like this happen almost weekly in this class, and even though I sometimes don't know how to explain the crazy grammar structure of English, I enjoy all their questions and eagerness to learn.
On some days, I believe our youth club in Boskovice could run itself! As a leader, I enjoy simply hanging out with the kids and joining them in the activities that interest them. I also really enjoy watching our older helpers become leaders and organizers! The group of half-leaders in Boskovice are a well functioning team. They plan and create massive forts for the little boys by moving all the couches and mattresses and strategically planning how to best piece together the fort. Last week, one of our youth helpers started cleaning a donated oven for our club center. As he was cleaning the oven, another helper and I were looking for cleaning supplies and started sorting through some cabinets. After a little while, another helper arrived and saw us sorting the cabinets with the cleaning supplies, so she just grabbed the glass cleaners and started at the windows. As more helpers arrived, they also joined in as we sorted and cleaned our club. Another helper took to organizing a competition with the little boys as we had this spontaneous spring cleaning! It was so fun watching these young leaders just jump in and help, give suggestions, and work as a team.
The fort included three rooms, a hallway, entryway, and courtyard!
Girl's Group continued to grow, and we noticed that the little girls wanted to keep inviting friends, but also wanted the group to be more personal (with 14 girls in one room, it was hard for them all to share their thoughts and opinions)! As a group, we determined the best idea would be to meet at our club location in Letovice and start group there - so that more men and women from our church can help with the program and open for everyone (boys too, though they haven't ventured much to join yet!)
These pictures are from the last couple of weeks we met at my home with the girls before deciding to move to the youth club location.
We want to share God's love with the world.
Group Photo
Star beads on shoes: I have a friend from Michigan whose track coach gives out star beads for the racers to wear on their shoes when they win a race. I liked the idea and explained to the girls that we are running God's race, and we are doing it together!
Tower Building: Our theme was about God giving us each different talents to use, but it is with all the different talents that we are able to accomplish tasks. To demonstrate this, I gave each girl a limitation (can't see, hear, use hands, or speak), then they had to work together to build a tower. They had to use their other "talents" to complete the task.
To remember that we all have talents from God and that God uses us together, we made puzzle piece necklaces! Each piece is different, but when we work together, we complete the picture.
Another Group Photo
For just over a week, we had a couple American mentors visit us here in Czech. The pair spoke numerous times to various groups - Sunday morning service, Youth Group, Women's Bible Study, Club Kids, and lead our first two meetings of "Girl's Group" at the club location! We have now named the group "Connect Club" as we want to be connected with each other and with God. We have time for playing team-building games, snacks, dancing, program, and enough leaders to split the groups into more manageable, intentional discussion groups. It's the perfect space to meet, and the kids feel right at home in the club room.
Playing Team-Building Games
We made prayers in a bottle :)
When our American visitor spoke at youth group, it brought up many questions from a group of our younger boys who have just started coming. I had been sitting with the boys during dinner, and joined them downstairs afterwards when they suddenly started asking "If God exists, then why...?" questions. At that moment our American visitor was passing through the room and I asked the boys if they would like to ask him. So, I was jumped in to a translator position - and I knew it was the Spirit helping me recall all the words to be able to translate clearly enough for the boys to understand and keep asking questions! We sat there for probably over an hour as the boys continued to rattle off questions and thought about the reality of God. Questions like "If God exists, explain dinosaurs?", "If God exists, why are people poor?", "Do natural disasters mean God is angry?", "What about other religions? How are Christians different?", "Do demons really exist?"'. I know this great discussion left some of the boys thinking, and I am praying that God continues to move through their hearts!
Dinner at Youth Group
One of our favorite activities with the older youth kids are Weekend Together Sleepovers. We leave Saturday morning for a nearby village and spend all day playing team activities, worshiping, encouraging, and learning how God wants to grow us as leaders in the youth group. On Sunday morning, we pack up and go to church. This time, we looked at what it means to be a disciple and the qualities of a disciple. Over the weekend, we had a challenge to do three things: write an encouragement note and give it to the person, intentionally pray with a friend/fellow youth student, and do an act of service. We played some great team games in the forest and relaxed a bit in the sunshine. The evening finished off with a campfire (and even American s'mores!) and some great campfire worship songs.
On free days and weekends, I adore spending time with friends or joining the girls in their activities!
Cheering on the cutest little Volleyball team!
Skateboarding with these three :)
Prague Adventures together! We left Saturday morning and came back Sunday evening, but our time in Prague was perfect as we explored Old Town together and took numerous pictures!