For the final two weeks Little Linguists met in December, we embraced themes surrounding animals with Sea Creatures and Zoo Animals. The toddlers loved all the decorations that enhanced the theme and made it feel like we were really exploring on a safari or in the ocean.
Decorating Treasure Chests and Popping Bubbles
When a birthday celebration left their balloons, I repurposed them to bring dimension in our dramatic play area! The kids loved making the balloons move like waves and looking at all the sea creatures on the backdrop. We also worked on catching some fish!
I always try to find some books to include as I am setting up the space for the toddlers that can relate to the theme. Finding those ways to bring these themes into their world is so important - and teaching them at a young age that books can offer more information, stories, and experiences is so great for growth!
In our final theme about Zoo Animals, we had a lot of fun acting out various animals and lots of animal sounds. In this theme, there is always a lot of matching - finding animals that are the same in toys, books, interactive play cards, and pictures. For this age, I also like to introduce matching animal patterns and seeing how the child may sort some animals that don't completely align with the animal pattern presented. It causes them to think outside of the box and create their own "rules" for the game. I found that even though the lion didn't have the tiger stripes, the toddler sorted the lions on the tiger pattern to keep them with the "big cats", whereas, the spots on the turtle's shell offered a "cheetah print" style and grouped the turtles with the cheetahs. I love watching children this age make deductions and seeing how they will fit the pieces into their game - some toddlers leave the animals that don't match in the box and others find a way for them to be included in the game - adjusting the "rules" accordingly.
Interacting with stacking animals! I loved watching the toddlers clap for themselves after successfully balancing a new animal on the stack!
Matching patterns and exploring animals in books with our craft for the day - binoculars!
Toddler hugs are one of the purest things in the world (because as any teacher or parent can explain, a toddler hug is genuine and is rarely given without full willingness). I loved all the "tackle hugs" this toddler gave on our final day!
Kid's Club - Letovice
To kick off December, our club day included a full Christmas Decoration of the club space! We set up the Christmas tree (and added a "this tree has survived 0 days of toddler destruction" sign after fixing a toppled tree multiple days in a row!), we decked out the room with lights and garland, we framed Christmas pictures the kids drew and added snowflakes to the chalkboard above the snack bar. To finish out the final touches of the decorating, we pulled out the Window Markers and created winter and Christmas scenes that were the cherry on the cake of the decorating day!
Since the start of the school year and our kick-off event to the year, we have noticed a group of 6th graders who come consistently to club on weekdays! They show up in a group and stick around with each other until the bus leaves for the village to where a couple live. It has been really fun to get to know this group of friends and see how they engage with one another and quickly jump into games, art projects, and competitions. Czech surveys say the average age for children in Czech to start smoking is about age 11/12. With the advancements of e-cigarettes and other nicotine products, that starting age is lowering. This is the crucial age for the students to come to our club centers so we can pull them into other activities. I had a deep talk with some of the girls about thinking for themselves and not following the crowd or doing things just because their friends say it is cool. I was happy to be able to chat with the girls about that and share this bit of encouragement with them as they are at such a vulnerable age and wanting to fit in with their peers. Thankfully, they have found a community at clubs with us and are enjoying their time there! (Also, Czech government is trying to pass a law limiting the purchases of energy drinks to 15+ after finding out many younger children are buying these drinks and consuming multiple a day. I am grateful the government is looking into this and concerned for the health of their future generation.)
Art activities that are fun for everyone!
BINGO never fails
Kid's Club - Boskovice
Though our crowd of students in Boskovice are older than those in Letovice, they are kids are heart! It has been really fun to see these students jump into games like BINGO or create their own competitions (my new favorite is getting the Spikeball to bounce off the net and land in a bowl for a candy!). As the evenings get dark quite quickly and all activities were kept indoors instead of using the outdoor space, we are happy the indoor space is large for more movement activities in this season. While talking with some of the students, a couple brought up they felt they have already made too many mistakes to turn their lives around. My heart broke for these kids - one who I have known for many years - to see them without that hope. I shared what hope looks like in my life and how faith has given me that freedom from mistakes. While neither of the students said it was what they want for their lives in that moment, both looked relieved to know that there is an option for that freedom in Christ. They asked questions, were skeptical, but ultimately found encouragement in the conversation, and I was grateful for their openness to share those deeper feelings (and then passed this bit of information to a leader who would be regularly in contact with them in my absence).
Youth Group
I taught youth group the first Friday of December with a theme about the arrival of shepherds at the manger. I shared how the shepherds left immediately to find baby Jesus and appeared before Joseph and Mary and baby Jesus without anything to offer them. That's how we still come to the feet of Jesus - without anything to offer but ourselves. To remember this, we decorated mirrors that I encouraged the students to place under their Christmas Trees to "give themselves back to Jesus" in this holiday season. The younger youth students had to leave for busses at the end of the mirror decorating, but the older youth students and I had lots of fun sharing candy, chocolate, popcorn, fries, and ice cream throughout the evening as we played games and talked! (Yes, it was not the most nutritious "snack" but we worked with what we had for the evening.)
Goodbyes
This season was like one I had never experienced. There were many joyous moments of reflection on the past eight and a half years and while looking to the future of how this ministry will continue to grow, while also many difficult goodbyes (or "see you laters" as one friend accurately insisted).
As I move into an itinerant missionary position that will include ministry in both the USA and Czech, I am excited for all the ways God has already shown the connection between these two places. I am still figuring out how everything will look, but the current plan is to return to Letovice 2-3 times a year to encourage their team while also maintaining the relationships with students I have mentored to be a support for them from afar (I truly believe this is what my youth need during this next season to give them the support and still the space so they can succeed). Furthermore, I will be continuing in ministry in the USA to jump into more discipleship opportunities with my team for Student Link (a disciple-making outreach through my organization, Global Link Partners) as well as helping team trainings for our regular teams going to Letovice as they need my assistance. I will also be volunteering in other areas of ministry and looking into ways I can further connect Czech and USA ministries. In today's society with connections being at the tips of our fingers, there are so many ways I can continue to encourage and mentor those I have been in contact with over these years, and I am grateful to God for this continuation in mission.
My volleyball group that I joined regularly
Our Christmas event with our team and youth - and they honored the work I had done so memorably. Throughout the final weeks of my time in Czech, I continued through all my normal activities and tried keeping things as normal as I could. There are so many gifts God gave me in this ministry, and it was the regular, normal activities that I continually found joy in. Watching many of these kids grow through those years of the regular activities is one of the greatest blessings.
Due to international travel laws, there were too many risks and restrictions to bring my dear bunny companion with me to the USA. We've done seven years of life together (a stunning age already for this rescued "farm rabbit"), and I never expected how attached I'd grow to him. He's with a wonderful family now, and they take such good care of him! Here are some pictures of our last day together.
A friend recently told me something along the lines of, "If all of this was only so you could grow closer to God, then it was already worth it. And the fact that you have seen such fruit from your answer to God's calling is evidence of the overflow that you focused first on God in you." Praise Jesus.
USA - Some highlights of time with family and friends
As I was traveling back to the states, I had two sets of aunts and uncles (and two cousins) also arriving back on the same date from their mission fields! One aunt and uncle were even on my last flight! We all came back to the cold north and enjoyed the holidays together. I have loved meeting up with friends as I have been back and feeling encouraged in this time of transition and have been easing myself back into American lifestyle.
This past Thursday looked very similar to a typical Thursday in America! Mission Church pulled off the most beautiful Thanksgiving Day celebration as we came together to recognize how thankful we are for each other. They wanted to make the Thanksgiving as traditional as it is in America, so dear friends organized it all and divided up all the traditional foods for each family to bring. They went over the top buying a full-sized turkey (difficult to get in Czech) and it just fit into the European-large oven we have at our church location! Since my friends wanted to make sure I could enjoy all the traditional foods, nearly all of it was accommodated to my dietary needs. These gestures show the greatest amount of love and care! As one friend and I wrote after the event, it showed mostly just how much we can do as a church together when we all come together and express our gratitude for each other and all the gifts God has given us.
After finishing all this wonderful food, my friend asked me to cut the pumpkin pie. The five-year-old sitting across from me (who had been eyeing the treat all through dinner) was already invested in dividing up the pie. His eyes were round as saucers and he knelt up on his chair as I cut the pie in half. He declared, "Yes!" as he reached out to grab his "half" assuming the treat between us was for us to split! I simply said, "I have to cut it again to share with others, just wait, okay?" I divided the half again, and he said, "Okay, now?!" and reached out to take the quarter. Again, I explained I still needed to keep cutting. I divided the quarter into thirds and he looked at me with really longing eyes as if saying "don't cut it any more" and said, "Okay... most definitely now!" He was happy that we had finally come to the point when we could eat the pie, and others were very happy we had cut it more times to share. We all enjoyed the food so much!
Before eating, the kids and I enjoyed many activities to help out their parents who were busy finishing up the cooking. We made Thanksgiving decorations, colored puzzles, and used adorned everything with stickers! It always makes me so happy when the kids show their creations. These two are both very diligent in asking how long before I have to leave for America, and I love soaking up the time with them and pouring into them. At one moment, the little girl grabbed onto my arm, and I asked, "Do you need something?" She replied, "Just your arm to hold." I'm so thankful for these children and getting to watch how they are growing in the ways of the Lord.
Kid's Club - Letovice
Due to school conferences one day this month, our club time ended up being a little quieter, so we started the afternoon with a long game of Carcassonne. Since it was the first time playing for our young club student, we played with simple rules and enjoyed building our kingdoms, roads, and cathedrals. She won and had a really fun time. I then taught her Spikeball and, as a volleyball player, she quickly picked up on the rhythm of the game. We were both warm with red cheeks from playing for so long, and she couldn't wait to teach her friends the next week!
One of my favorite parts of this work is watching young leaders engage with the students. Many of our junior leaders have given these students a huge gift by being role models for them and engaging with them in activities. One junior leader encouraged many rounds of ping-pong "around the world" with the students and was very patient to help a new learner get the hang of the game instead of letting her give up. He then joined in many rounds of BINGO with the students as they made up animal sounds for all the animals on the BINGO board. Knowing these junior leaders are very busy with their own work, school, and activities and still make the time to be examples and leaders for these students shows me that they have all the skills to continue the work. Just as they were invested into through Kid's Clubs, they now turn around and invest into others.
Kid's Club - Boskovice
On the days I am on rotation in our club in Boskovice, I have been bringing a couple new activities to introduce. This group of teenagers are some of the sweetest kids and they form a great collective together! They had lots of fun making diamond art animals and decorating their phone cases. We played BINGO here too one week and they are requesting it again soon! I had little prizes - like candy and stickers - for the winners, and it became a competition for who had the most wins and motivated everyone in the game! We see a lot of the teenagers at these youth clubs who are more "rough-around-the-edges," and watching them jump into these "child-like" games and activities to just enjoy the time and work together encourages me for this generation of upcoming young adults.
Kid's Club - Velke Opatovice
Though I forgot to take pictures at club in Velke Opatovice this month, we enjoyed the time at club talking and playing games like foosball and ping-pong. Many of the kids who stated coming to our Velke Opatovice center a couple years ago are now in high schools that are closer to our Boskovice and Letovice locations, so we are encouraging them to come to these locations now and further develop the connection of the locations. Our other locations are a bit more comfortable for the high schoolers as there is more space for games, to spread out, and not shared bathrooms and hallways with other after-school activities (we currently share the building space with music school and art school). It is always so fun to see the friendships between the students develop as they spend time together at clubs.
Little Linguists
The toddlers enjoyed themes about Spiders, Autumn, and Fruit this month. In our Spider theme, we sang about a ticklish spider! Then, we made pipe-cleaner spiders on paper plate webs, and it was a huge hit. The kids all loved attaching their spiders to their webs and placing lots of bug stickers on the web. The toddlers spent lots of time crawling under and through a spiderweb of ropes. They used googly-eye finger puppets to make their little hands into little spiders crawling over everything (to the joy of all the mothers...). Our interactive manipulative table was filled with plastic toy bugs, fly swatters, and picture books of six and eight-legged creatures!
With our Autumn theme, we collected apples and mushrooms (a popular fall free-time activity for families), fed chestnuts to a hungry squirrel, and masked up like forest animals. We sang about the changing color of the leaves and put the paper leaves on a parachute to launch them and let them fall around us. The moms are always so excited to see how they can continue these forms of play and activities in their home. I even found one mom had created another squirrel-feeding box and brought it to the toy closet for the kids to continue playing with the activity on different days the Mother's Center is open!
We made a "fruit salad" together one week and talked about all the different kinds of fruit. The toddlers worked on their matching skills in many different activities and fine-motor skills with fruit cutting. They worked together in the play kitchen and market to sell their fruit and make a fruit salad. We even read a book about a mouse protecting his strawberry and one child had the most fun watching what happens to the strawberry throughout the story! As some of the toddlers are growing, they have started preschool now in the second half of the school year. While I miss these toddlers and moms, I am also grateful for more focused time with moms and toddlers to help them and answer many questions about child development.
Youth Group & Mission Church
This past weekend, we had a full weekend of activities with all the churches in the city to prepare our hearts for advent. It started on Friday night with our youth group and a night of worship. We had time for prayers and testimonies and lots of praising Jesus. One of my youth students made me so proud as she shared her story with the youth group and how she is growing in faith. I remember the moment she started her journey with God so many years ago, and it brought me so much joy to hear her share her story. The weekend continued with mass on Saturday and speakers at the Catholic Church and then a discussion, prayer, and worship all afternoon into the evening at our ELIM Center. Sunday morning church was a wonderful advent message about the coming of Christ and looking at the traditional story with a different perspective. There is much to anticipate in this season!
Special Visit
One of my dear little buddies came for a very special visit! The daughter of some close American Missionary friends who has a love for books, bunnies, and little joys in life like me came for an afternoon at Kendra's. We colored, read, talked, painted, baked banana bread, and spent time out on one of the last semi-warmer fall days in the garden. All the bunny licks and cuddles was the cherry on top! One of the things we find we like to talk about is wondering what Heaven will be like (we've decided that in addition to fullness in presence of God, that bunnies and gardens with hammocks would be pretty "heavenly."). The last time I had visited her, she said very wisely for her age how she wished we could be neighbors but knows God has us in our neighborhoods for purposes of sharing His love with those around us. Though this sweet little friend knows we will still see each other many times as she travels to America and I to Czech, when we saw each other this past month, she said, "You know, maybe we can finally be neighbors in Heaven. I'd like that."
Ice cream within the final hours that ice cream was open for the season
For the second time this year, we had a team of Americans come to Letovice! Eight Americans from my home church in Minnesota joined us for a week of outreach events that they lovingly named “Rekindle” based on the verse 2 Timothy 1:6-7 as they aimed to rekindle the spark for after-school clubs in the new school year. They also focused on encouraging and building into our junior leaders as kid's clubs became full again.
It is always fun for me to get the teams from the airport and travel with them back and forth from Letovice to Prague. With all the great history in Prague, we have a great time exploring the city where I give a near constant “walking tour” with little snippets of Czech history in the center of the city.
Sunday Morning on the train to Prague was accompanied with some worship!
WATCH A VIDEO RECAP ABOUT REKINDLE WEEK HERE!
Birthday Party
After multiple years, we once again had Birthday Party! (Which had been an annual kick-off to the school year before we moved into our new space. For years, we desired to once again have Birthday Party, but with the building moves in our organization flowed by Covid lockdown restrictions, we hadn’t yet started it again.). Throughout the week, we invited kids from the schools, at clubs, and emailed all out LetFest attendees to come for this big kick-off event, and it was a huge success! There were more people who came than any of us had expected with about 150 students who dropped in during the event.
The American Team led many Party Activity favorites including Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey, piñatas, face painting, balloon animals, and many other party games!
Enjoying the Photo Booth!
One of my students from English Classes the previous years came during club time and Birthday Party the week the American team was leading. This student’s mom and I had talked just a couple months earlier that her daughter is very talented at English, though the mother said her daughter had expressed not seeing the value in learning English and wasn’t motivated to continue practicing. I encouraged the mom (a friend of mine) that all it will take is an experience where the little girl realizes how beneficial learning English is. The mom told me excitedly, “She came home the other day and just started talking in English! When I asked her why she decided to start now, she said she realized there was no other way to talk to the Americans who were at ELIM.”
We finished the Birthday Party with a special program starting with a comical magic show and then continuing with a message about Jesus’s birthday - a birthday that changed the world - and the gift Jesus gives to us because of His birthday. The kids enjoyed listening to this program and then participating in a raffle drawing and finally receiving a gift from our American friends who had graciously brought birthday bags and gifts for all the attendees.
During Birthday Party, one of the girls we had met during the school visits came in crying and wrapped her arms around me. As I asked what was wrong, she explained she was so happy to be at Birthday Party with all of us. Initially, her mom had told her she couldn’t go, but as her mom read more about our organization and learned many of her daughter’s friends would be there, she gave her permission. This girl has since come to our youth clubs each week since connecting with us during the school visits.
WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT BIRTHDAY PARTY HERE!
School Visits
For a couple of regular school lecturers, we found ourselves for the first time both in the back of the classroom as the Americans led class visits
For three mornings the Americans were with us, we visited the Middle School in Letovice and taught immersive English in 26 classes while also inviting the students to our youth center and after-school club activities! The teachers and students all enjoyed the lessons. Students regularly found us again in the hallways between classes to continue practice in English conversations.
One of my favorite parts of watching these Americans teach in the classrooms was how they became comfortable in front of the classroom, and by the end of the three days, they were also comfortable to help in lessons of their teammates as they had seen it done so many times. There was wonderful efficiency in this group and the variety of their games created a wonderful environment for the middle schoolers to practice their English with native speakers.
We saw the fruits of the school visits immediately when many of the kids we met in the school came to youth clubs that week (and multiple more have been continuing to come!).
Kid's Club - Letovice
(1) Decorating cookies with edible ink, the kids figured out how to stamp it on their tongues to make tongue-tattoos! (2) proudly holding a completed BINGO board.
The first week of October was our kick-off week to clubs in Letovice and with the American team here for school visits and to lead clubs during the week, we quickly had active clubs again! The Americans created a “getting to know you BINGO” that all the kids received upon arriving. This helped break barriers as the students were encouraged to meet the Americans and ask them about themselves. Those who were most active in the activity received more American candies and full, colorfully stamped cards!
We have been enjoying lots of games and crafts at clubs in Letovice. The kids regularly ask for people to join in with Headbands, ping-pong, or ask for a creative project. It has been fun seeing the kids try new things that they wouldn’t have tried before and learning something new. One of the boys decided to try a weaving project with us and was surprised at how much fun he had doing it! Soon all his buddies had joined in the fun, and at one point, the craft table was filled with only boys enjoying the weaving project!
Girl on the far left after asking many questions in Headbands finally declared, “I don’t know… I must be a flying shark!” She was a dragon, but all her friends thought her response was comically clever!
Traditionally, our club time is filled with free-time and group activities that help leaders build connections with the kids. During the week the American Team was with us, we also had a short program time that intersected free-time and group activities. The program encouraged the kids to ask deeper questions and seek answers. While our group of kids in Letovice is the youngest of our three locations, they were engaged and focused on the program.
Even with the cooler autumn weather, we enjoyed little breaks of sunshine at clubs that allowed us to go outside for large games at the beginning of the month.
Kid's Club - Velke Opatovice
At our kid’s club location in Velke Opatovice, the start of the school year had been a slow start with usually 4-5 teenagers at the club. With the arrival of the American team, we went first to Velke Opatovice and it encouraged the kids to all come together and join in the activities. We noticed it was this group that had the most questions about the program time and enjoyed connecting with the leaders long after the program had finished to discuss the deep questions they had acquired during the talk about where life originates and how can we know if there is a Creator. We are very grateful for these conversations and the openness these students have with us.
Kid's Club - Boskovice
This school year, the students attending our Boskovice youth center are mostly high school students. We enjoy their laid-back personalities and their desire to simply be with friends. The billiards pool table is always active, there are typically a couple guys throwing a foam football around, and recently, coloring anti-stress Bible Verse coloring sheets have been a hit with boys and girls! Our Spikeball at this youth center had broken some time ago, and my mom brought a new one to gift the center. It was really fun to start teaching the kids this new game as many of them have not yet played Spikeball before, and we are really happy for an active indoor sport activity to have with these teens during the winter months!
Of course, during the Rekindle Week, we also had a special program for the youth in Boskovice, and we were pleasantly surprised with how engaged all these youth were in the program time. Last year, when the same speaker had come to visit, the students seemed disengaged, but this year there was a lot of interest in his presentation and trickling conversations that continued afterwards!
Little Linguists
This month, the Littles learned about Dinosaurs and Things with Wheels! We marched like dinosaurs and explored with many dinosaur sorting manipulatives. With our theme about Things with Wheels, the toddlers enjoyed riding around on their little cars, sorting, and our favorite game - Stop, Go! The toddlers and moms all joined in for this game as they listened to the stoplight instructions of “stop” and “go” as we jogged around the racetrack.
Dinosaur matching and sorting
In Czech culture, children should begin to attend preschool a couple mornings a week after they turn three. Usually at the start of the new school year, I see a lull in attendance as the three-year-olds are now in preschool and new moms have yet to hear about the program. This month, however, the class has been at a good size with moms and toddlers and a few moms opted to keep their toddlers home from preschool on Tuesdays so they can continue to attend the Little Linguist lessons!
Things with Wheels Activities
Youth Group
I absolutely love the time with these youth kids. They are such a fun group, and I really see how their years of growing up together and their friendships are helping them in some harder seasons of life. In a recent theme about Home and finding our Home in Jesus, we were talking about our physical homes and one of the youth said, “well, I don’t really have a great home because my family just kind of ignores each other. Sometimes I try to pull everyone together but it can be hard. That’s why I’ve always considered ELIM and this group my home and family.” I treasure being a part of the family for these youth kids.
Mom brought some American Marshmallows for S'mores at Youth Group!
The leadership talent in this group is extraordinary. I’ve seen it grow over the years, but this last summer it became evident their self-sufficiency was at a point of their truly great potential as a team. With a vision in mind and knowing I have helped prepared these youth to be leaders in this ministry, I decided to take a step back and pursue a role as an itinerant missionary. I plan to travel back and forth a couple times in the year to encourage and mentor these young leaders and to give them the next push in leadership. While this move is bittersweet for many reasons, watching how these youth students are already taking more leadership is beyond encouraging! During Rekindle Week, a translator who I had only briefly conversed with went and found the American she would be translating for on her own and prepared as any good translator would do. Later in the evening, I had brought her over to the American to introduce them only to find out they had already met and talked through everything earlier! I am so proud of all of them!
Trip with Mom
After seven years, my mom was able to come back to Czech for a visit! There have been a lot of changes and growth in my ministry since those first years, and I was so happy to share it with her.
Walking in the foggy fall weather
Meeting many friends, students, my pet bunny, and volleyball team
We then took a quick vacation to Berlin and finally Prague. My mom had been in Berlin 40 years ago, and it was really fun for me to wander around with her and hear all her memories of that time. (We went to many tourist sites and the powerful wall memorial and Holocaust memorial.)
I read a couple books about tunnel operations in Germany in the Cold War. Found the location of Tunnel 29 which rescued 29 people from East Germany and walked along other tunnels marked on the surface.
Memorial to the Jews of the Shoah
We then spent a full day in Prague after that and I had the best day! We did three activities that had been on my “want to do in Prague” list for a while and hadn’t worked out yet, and all three activities were hits! (An Art Nouveau style synagogue, an outdoor man-made cave labyrinth, and a Cold War and Soviet Bunker tour by a guide who defected from communist Czechoslovakia as a 19-year-old in 1970 and returned after the revolution.)
