Prague Christmas Market
A month ago, I was traveling back to Minnesota for Christmas. As I worked my way through the lines and checkpoints at the airport, one security agent who looked over my passport asked, "Are you going home for Christmas?" Even before he had asked the question, I was holding out my Czech visa card knowing that the security agent would likely need to see that as well. He noticed my card and then made air-quotations as he said the word "home" again. I chuckled and said, "Yes, I'm going home for Christmas." Since I have never spent Christmas anywhere but Minnesota, it really is home fro Christmas. I enjoyed as much time as I could with my family and had many meetings throughout the three-week stay. I visited Barnes and Noble four times and Half-Price Books twice, and Caribou Coffee more times than I want to count! So my bookshelves are restocked with reading material, and the caffeine intake should sustain me for a while as well. It is always a special time to be home and with family for Christmas.
On Our Way to Church
I always love meeting with teachers who inspired me and shape the way I teach. (I met with five former teachers - middle school, high school, and university professors - while I was in MN.)
Family Time
I arrived back in Czech before the New Year and welcomed in the year 2020 with friends. Normally, we celebrate the New Year with a sleepover party at ELIM a couple nights before the new year, but this time, we celebrated a couple days after New Year's Day. I didn't try to hard to to get my jet-lag back on the right schedule knowing that I would have New Years and the sleepover with the kids - though we use the term "sleepover" for these events "lock-in" is probably a better equivalent for these favorite activities. After sleeping most of the afternoon the day after the sleepover club, the jet-lag seemed to catch up also. It was the first time seeing many of these kids after the Christmas break, and it felt so natural being back. While some of the kids came running up to me to give me hugs saying, "Three weeks felt like forever!" others saw me and said, "Has it been three weeks already?!" I'm really excited for all God will do in 2020 with this group.
The Sleepover Group
We had many tournaments during the late hours of the night including foosball and ping-pong. I ran the tournament for a table game called "SquareUp!" It was fun to watch some of the kids get better at the game after playing a few rounds and begin to knock those who were the best at the beginning down in the tournament ranking. One of the "big kids" even came to me and said, "Don't play me with that little girl until the very end! She is so quick already and I need more rounds to practice before I play her!"
Growing up in Minnesota, winter sports have always been something I enjoy. (For Minnesotan kids, even sports that weren't meant to be "winter sports" sometimes qualify as snow and freezing temperatures are factors to consider in spring and autumn seasons.) Many weekends, the skating rink is open for a couple hours, and people from Letovice fill the ice. I love the time to meet up with club kids and chat as we circle the rink.
English Class students were so excited to start English Class again after Christmas break! Furthermore, they were even more thrilled about the new space we have for class. There is finally more space for group games and the openness allows for me to move quickly between small groups too. Beginners Class has started a new theme: Around Town. They are each creating their own cities as they learn the English vocabulary to describe their city. The Next Step Class surprised themselves by succeeding in a sentence-building game! Some of the students were a bit hesitant to try putting the words together to create sentences, so they started with simple two-word sentences. As the game continued, they added more and more words to their sentences, finally understanding how to build and add onto their sentence structures. By the end, the students weren't playing the game for points anymore, rather they were trying to see how long they could build sentences with their partner. It is so fun to see their excitement when learning English.
Small Group Game with the Translators
Space for a Big Group Game
Translators: "We want to play too! Can you be the 'house' this round?"
With Christmas break behind us, the kids are welcoming back their regular schedules and club routines. While many of the regular club attenders are excitedly coming to club, it is also very normal to be learning new names as the kids continue to invite their friends to join at club. We may have to practice names and ask more than once for the kids to re-introduce themselves, but learning each of their names is one of my favorite ways to connect with the kids further at club.
Fort Building in Boskovice
Our Bible Study for youth students took a pause as many of our former students transitioned into university and new youth rose into leadership roles within the youth group. At the start of the new year, the youth pastor and his wife decided to revive the Bible Study group as six youth students show interest in deepening their relationships with God and further study His word beyond our Friday night youth group meetings and Sunday morning services! We call the group STEP - and English acronym for Study. Talk. Eat. and Pray - not necessarily in that order, but each of the points is definitely incorporated in each lesson. I am looking forward to studying scripture and God's truths with this group in 2020.
First STEP Meeting of 2020