Czech Republic Day Five

This morning our team woke up to the clean fresh morning air of Sedlecany ready for another fun day of teaching.  We began the morning with our team devotional. Jaimie lead us in reading Isaiah 43:1 "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you: I have summoned you by name; you are mine."  Our team was challenged to remember that God's love is personal. How incredible is it that the God of the universe knows us personally, calls us by name, and claims us as His own? We were challenged today in the classroom to remember that God loves our students- they are not just another face in the crowd; they are uniquely cherished by Him even though many of our students do not believe in God. God has redeemed each one of them and all they need to do is BELIEVE & RECEIVE Him. We all agreed to commit this day of teaching of being intentional with our students to show each one of them how they are individually seen and valued by God. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, our personal touch of His love can change everything.  Our fun topic of the day centered around travel with the topics of America & Texas.

Oh this was going to be a fun day. Sherry started off our lessons helping our students learn more about our country America. Students learned about Washington DC and some of the national monuments and their importance. She did an excellent job with lots of good extra research on her own. Our students were fully engaged and enjoyed the discussion and asking questions while practicing their English.  Then we discussed travel. Students practiced their English conversation within situations that they may encounter while traveling by airplane. They had a lot of fun role playing and reading. Sherry and I were impressed on how much english they could read. 

Then after our break, we moved into our fun discussion of TEXAS. Oh boy this was the highlight of the day! From learning Texas vocabulary words, playing Texas BINGO & Pictionary to learning and singing "Deep in the Heart of Texas", our students had a blast. They all agreed that Texas is a BIG FUN place and they would all love to visit. Our students work diligently and we noticed a bit more talking and engagement with the lesson today. At the very end of class, we invited our students to come to our Afterschool Game Time activities at the Community Center. We enjoyed a great Czech lunch of Ratatouille and headed back to prepare for the afternoon of board games and SNACKS. 

Oh did we mention that we hand out CANDY to our students throughout our lessons as incentives to practice their English. Yeah, it really works. 

Afternoon game time was a blast. Our missionary Matt said that normally a few show up for the first day but more would come as the week goes on. We prayed that the Lord would send us at least 15 students for the afternoon and guess what? We had 33 students come that afternoon! We prepared loads of SNACKS and Soda for them to enjoy as we set up tables and chairs around the great room at the community center. We learned very quickly that their favorite snack are PRINGLES. The games the students loved were UNO, Dominos, Spoons, & Monopoly. After about an hour of playing games, Matt took a few minutes and shared with the students about God's love for them. He encouraged the students to ask us the teachers about this special kind of LOVE. We are continuing to pray that the Lord allows us as a team to have those gospel centered conversations during these afternoon activities. We ask you as the reader to allow the Lord to guide us in this experience and to be BOLD for the gospel. May we remember the personal touch of His love can change everything. 

After the afternoon activities, our team cleaned up and headed to a local restaurant for dinner. Then we prepared our lessons for tomorrow and are headed to bed so we can be well rested. Most of our team is finally over the jet lag and able to sleep through the night. Tomorrow we anticipant our English lessons with Sports and Health topics along with our afterschool program of gym time games. We have been in awe of the Lord bringing Unity and Connection for our team. Please continue to pray for this and another wonderful day of teaching tomorrow as we are half way through our week. Thanks for continuing to read - Ahoj!