Love is a Universal Language : Here We Go!

A couple weeks ago, our stay-at-home order was lifted and we could slowly start meeting in groups again! I was so excited to start getting back into a rhythmic schedule, though I had found I made a "schedule" for myself even during the country-wide quarantine. I had time to develop more of my hobbies and dove eagerly each day into intentional prayer time for my students and youth kids. I am already looking forward to summer activities with these kids and youth students!

Since our Connect Club (Girl's Bible Study) hadn't met for so long, we decided our first day back together would be a bike trip! On our way, we picked up the girls and leaders as we continued on the trail together and finally ending at town square for ice cream. The girls we so excited to spend the time together on their bikes that during the trip, they already started asking when we would plan another bike trip. It was so fun sharing this hobby I enjoyed so much during quarantine with the girls.

Our original plan at Connect Club was to cover the theme "Life of Jesus" from Christmas to Easter. Though, due to the virus and cancelations, Easter came and went before we had the chance to meet again. The leaders and I decided we would continue with the "Life of Jesus" theme until the end of the school year. We have been talking about miracles and events in Jesus' life and how it relates to us today. On Friday, we looked at the story of Zacchaeus. I told the girls to imagine the richest man they knew climbing a tree to see over the crowd. The girls gave a few snickers and I explained that it likely how the crowd reacted to seeing Zacchaeus in the tree. Then, we talked about how Jesus reacted. He called Zacchaeus by name and said he was going to his house. I asked the girls what would happen in Jesus came to their houses today. They explained that they hadn't cleaned their rooms or prepared some food if Jesus came today, so we talked about how Jesus wants to come into our lives like he came into Zacchaeus' home - with the mess and all! To remember the story, we made keychains for our house keys with the first letter of our names because Jesus knows our name and wants to come to our house!

Keychains

A couple weeks ago, I was able to open English Class again, and it was exciting to see all the kids again! First class is continuing with their theme of “Around the World” as we learned about temperature, monuments, and food in the world. As we learned about food this week, I was teaching the students to describe the flavors of the food using the words sweet, salty, sour, spicy, and bland. For one of the activities, I asked the students to look through a picture menu and find foods in the menu that would fit these flavor descriptions. When I asked one of the students to show me a picture of a “bland food” she looked at me very confused and said, “Why would a restaurant sell bland food? There won’t be anything in this menu that is bland!” A minute later she returned to me pointing at one food picture saying, “Okay Kendra, if you ate that napkin next to the plate, that would be pretty bland!” They never stop making me smile!

Next Step English Class has been continuing their theme “Postcards from America” as we visited the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood. This past week, because Monday was National Kid’s Day, we had a Kid’s Day Reading Celebration! The students read Elephant and Piggie books and then created their own stories. I was very impressed to see many of the kids reading the stories with emotion and expression! I tell them many times that half the work of translating is making sure our expressions and intonation match the speaker, so it was fun to see the kids applying that to the stories!

(1) mix-and-match food to create a new food. (2) creating a story with vocabulary cards.

During the time we could not meet in groups, I created videos for my English Class and Little Linguist students. The first week we started meeting for Little Linguists again, it was a smaller group, as I had expected, though a handful of my regular Littles had come back and were excited to see everyone again. We sang about traveling to the moon on a rocket and seeing all the stars. I was surprised the following week when the class was suddenly full of moms and kids! Some of the moms told me that they had seen the videos online with their toddler and decided to try the class. I had so much fun with all the kids, and some of them picked up on my name rather quickly, calling me over to see what they were creating. We sang a song about the letters in our name and then the Littles looked through stickers to find the letters in their names. Some of them even tried tracing the letters in their name. I'm excited for more mornings with this group!

Learning to recognize and trace the letters in their name

Exploring with flashlights and stars

When we reopened our club centers, we also noticed it was a smaller group than before quarantine, though it is giving us a chance to really connect with the youth who are coming and really focus on those relationships. We know the other kids will come again as they get back into a schedule (only Elementary kids are in school; some Middle School kids will start this coming week, but only going twice a week on different schedules so the classes are smaller.) Over the past week, I have really enjoyed spending time with the kids outside of our youth club in Boskovice as they try new scooter tricks - while I just weave around the ramps on my penny-board. At our Kid's Club in Letovice, it has been fun spending time with the kids as we play games together and jump between different competitions in ping-pong, foosball, and spikeball. A new favorite game we are playing with the kids is Psychiatrist, where the "doctor" needs to ask the patients questions to figure out the key for how they answer. (For example, maybe everyone is responding with the same letter that their name starts with.) For these clever kids, it usually doesn't take long to figure out the key!

Scooter Pictures

Ready for Club!

As things began slowly opening up, I was able to meet again with friends and some of the kids outside. It was wonderful to start seeing some friends and kids outside as the rules began lifting for the outdoor interactions. Now that clubs and classes have started again, I realize I need to make sure I spend time on weekends out on bike rides and hikes as it was something I had become used to during country-wide quarantine. Only now, we are getting much needed rain on weekends!