I am convinced the security at the airport was overwhelmed with my suitcase as it was filled mainly with goodies for the kids and a stack of new books impressive to any reader... which I have projected to sustain me into the summer. A book is the continuation of the Christmas holiday because each time I open a new book, it is like unwrapping the present again!
With these lovely new influences of writing as inspiration, I decided to write this post as an author may begin writing a novel. I have a habit of reading as I lounge on the sofa while petting my bunny and juggling the coffee mug as I balance the book on my lap to turn the pages. I recommend (if it is possible) finding a comfortable seat and a warm beverage to enjoy as the words paint these stories for you to experience in this lengthy post.
Chapter 1, 2019
Darkness brewed the sky as night descended over the countryside. The presence of dusk arrived earlier than expected due to two factors: the continued impact of winter solstice and the jet-lag that intercepted my internal knowledge of time. On a traditional evening, I would start easing into the night and slowly drift to sleep, but this wasn't a traditional evening. We were on the brink of a sleepover club - the "calm before the storm" as one colleague explains it. However, I had two factors to my advantage in bracing the hurricane: my excitement to see the kids again and... the jet-lag that intercepted my internal knowledge of time! There was no struggle in the early hours of the morning to stay awake with the kids, but when sunrise finally dawned, the problem was clear. I zombie-ly helped the kids roll sleeping bags and clean-up the destruction of the hurricane that left potato chip bags littered on the floor and towers of cups that silently grew in the night. Yet, the aftermath was a morning reminder of all the excitement we had shared together as a club to ring in the new year!
Happy New Year!
The sleepover was a fantastic pre-New Years celebration. Then, we had a day to rest before going out for New Years Eve with friends. A group of us stayed at my friends' church in another city to celebrate the start of 2019. The church is conveniently located on the town square, which allowed us to enjoy endless rounds of fireworks displayed by the villagers at midnight. Ironically, the city "square" has the shape of a horse-shoe, so my friend and I ran back and forth on the square following the sound of the fireworks to watch new light displays for nearly a half-hour! At this point, I began to accept that between the travel, jet-lag, sleepover, and New Years Party, I no longer recognized night in equivalent with sleeping. Thankfully, it didn't take long after to get the routine functioning again, and it was satisfying to be able to use the jet-lag to my advantage throughout these events.
Our audience at youth group continues to change and grow as the club kids reach the age when they can begin attending the Friday night festivities. With the new year now upon us, we have been talking with the older youth group attendees how they envision youth group in the future and encouraging them to take a leading role for the younger students. It is a time of planning, setting goals, and acting on visions, so when the youth pastor asked me to give the first program of youth group in the new year, it seemed natural to focus on goals for the new year. It didn't take long for me to realize that God had another idea for the lesson. God moved me in the opposite direction - into reflection of 2018. For it is usually after we have reflected that we are able to make more concise and reachable goals for the future. To help the students reflect on 2018, I printed 12 pictures with a brief description that they had to place in order from January to December. Some events were very memorable and others took some more thinking to recall, but they successfully placed all the events in order and enjoyed reminiscing the past year at youth group with each other.
Our building is the ideal picture of "multi-purposeful". During the week, the club kids run around the ping-pong table in the main room and use the tables in the Cafe for a variety of games and crafts. Downstairs, the kids workout, dance, and lounge on the eclectic assortment of furniture. In the span of 15 minutes on Tuesday, all the club kids are ushered out the double doors, the ping-pong table is collapsed, and tables are situated in the main room for English Class to begin! Every other Friday, the main room is flooded with students and pillows decorating the carpet as make-shift, community seating at youth group. By Sunday, the space is filled with neat lines of chairs for Sunday Service. Adults gather around the tables for coffee and prayer, and the downstairs rooms become a gathering place for the Sunday School crew. Monday morning, the tables are rearranged in the Cafe for English Class to start and the week full of activities begins again!
Tables for Games and Crafts at Club
Learning should always be this fun! The students came back from their extended Christmas Break with renewed energy and easily fell back into the routine of English Class. To jump back into lessons, I planned a topic that was basic, refreshing, and energetic - parts of the body. We did a "Hokey Pokey" rendition, labeled live models, looked at x-rays to match it to a part of the body, and created our own monster drawing with extensive amounts of arms, eyes, and bellybuttons! While I expect many of the students are capable of a bigger challenge, it was an esteem-building lesson that encouraged review of (mostly) familiar vocabulary.
We might be a couple months early in celebrating reading in our classroom. However, the students had created a class book about two characters who travel around the world, so I created a lesson to celebrate the accomplishments of my little authors! We conducted a survey with a plethora of reading questions and developed a "class library" filled with favorite titles. This year's class is incredibly talented at translating our weekly picture book, and I desire to see them push their English skills to write their own stories. With a variety pack of stickers, a blank sheet of paper, and a sharp pencil, these Elementary students are creating their own stories in English! Floods of questions regarding spelling often fill the work-time, and there is much encouraging when these little writers become infected with a case of "brain-freeze". Yet, the rejoicing at the simple three sentence story may as well be a book signing for a new novel release!
Snow. It's a miraculous wonder through the eyes of a toddler; enthralled by watching the thick, fluffy flakes parachute to the frozen ground. Amazingly enough, the magic of snow appearing from the cloud-covered sky can be replicated indoors by tossing coffee filters around the playroom! The reaction still produces a giggle, a chase after the descending thin paper, and then stomping on the "flake" when it finally reaches its resting point. We also replicated snowmen with tissue paper pom-poms, which inevitably turned into an unexpected "snowball" fight. The art activity for this week was one of my favorite ideas so far. I wanted to create a "snow-globe" style art craft, so the Littles designed their own snowman background that I attached inside a plastic cup. While they were working on coloring, I fervently snapped out paper circles with a hole-puncher and placed the "snow" inside the cup. We then cut, tied, and fixed a balloon over the open end of the cup so when the Little pulls down and releases the balloon, the snow is catapulted into the cup to create a simple snow-globe. The mothers were as excited as the Littles for this activity, but the toddlers didn't leave their new creations unattended for long as they brought them along down the slide and into the play tent for free-time. I am curious if the mothers finally got to enjoy the little, delightful snowfall of the snow-globe during nap-time!
Lacing up the skates and feeling the brisk air brush against my face as I enter the skating rink is a feeling that brings be back to my youth. While I am in desperate need to sharpen the blades and have lost a good portion of my tricks, the rush of adrenaline on the ice is still as present as ever. I find I am content simply locking hands with the little girls and guiding their balance along as we circle the rink. God never stops using our talents, so when the opportunity to teach and connect with these young club attenders arose, I couldn't refuse. One of the little girls is a talented skater already with only a few tip-lessons from her grandfather. She was able to turn backward and continue into a 360 rotation expressing that she would like to do a spin, but the momentum slows and the rotating stops. I said to my little friend the next time she tries to simply pull her arms in to tuck under her chin. On the next loop around the rink, she again tried the spin with the little tip and conducted a beautiful two-food spin with at least five rotations! She had the biggest smile as she skated off to perform her new trick for her parents. My smile was equally expressive as her joy transcended contagiously.
For one hour on Friday, my home is nearly inaccessible due to the jumble of shoes, stacks of backpacks, and winter attire that protrudes from the coatrack. Upon reaching the living room, a group of young girls crowd around the table scooping up an after-school snack. (In this growing group with these growing young ladies, I have added a second table in the living room to supply a larger space for the treats!) There is much chatter about the week at school, plans for the weekend, and anxious excitement for the plan for the next hour.
While I was stateside, I found a set of these beautiful bracelets that I knew the girls would love. What caught my eye with these bracelets was that each one was slightly different and the triangles at the end of the band created an arrow-like design. As a group, we discussed going to Jesus when we experience difficult situations and when we are overcome with joy. By using the example of the grateful leper in the Bible, the girls opened their hearts to share good and bad situations in their lives. God gave me the analogy of a valley and a mountain to describe the greatest struggles and "top of the world" situations. When you draw a valley (V) on the top of a paper and a mountain (^) on the bottom and then draw a line connecting the V's to triangles, it looks the same as our bracelets! we write JESUS on the center of the paper between the valley and mountain to remember that Jesus is the center and that we should go to Him in the good and bad. When I passed out the bracelets, one little girl said, "I really like this, but it doesn't have 'JESUS' in the middle."
I said, "we just remember Jesus is in the center."
"Can I borrow your pen?"
And the 10-year-old wrote JESUS on her wrist in between the arrows. It is their passion and devotion to learning how to live a life for the Savior that overwhelms me with joy.
The whole week, the girls came to club with their bracelets and went to school with their bracelets... they even posted pictures of their bracelets on social media. On Thursday, one worried little girl shuffled into club and solemnly stated she couldn't find her bracelet. Lost. At group on Friday, the same little girl exploded into the living room proudly displaying her bracelet declaring that her dad found it under the rug at home! Unexplainably, the week before, I had planned a lesson on the Parable of the Lost Coin, and after sharing the story with the girls, this 10-year-old exclaimed with saucer eyes, "that's what happened to ME!" To have them connect their lives with the Biblical stories is exactly what I dreamed they would do. Continuing the lesson, we created coin rubbings to create original bookmarks. On the back of the bookmark, I asked the girls to write our theme verse for the day - "We love because He first loved us." 1. Jn 4:19. As the girls worked on their bookmarks, one asked aloud, "Hey, what's that verse again?" Before I could answer, the little girl who had connected with the parable quoted the verse in complete accuracy! Again, another asked for the words to the verse, and this little girl flawlessly rattled off the words. While all the girls were working on the verse from 1. John, God was whispering to me the words from Psalms 119:11... "I have hidden Your words in my heart..."
So Many Little Girls and So Much Pink!