Czech Republic Day Eight

Friday, April 11. Well, here we are it's Fri YEAH! Our team cannot believe that a week ago we began this journey to the Czech Republic. We've had emotional mixtures full of fun, frustration (from time to time for each team member), flexibility, and now the finality- the final day in the classroom with our students. Today our students and us as the teachers needed to flex and teach at another school campus today because the 16-18 year olds were participating in standardized testing. The good news was that this campus was much closer to our lodging at the community center and so we were able to sleep in just a tad bit more this morning. We began the day with our team devotions. I, Denise your daily blog writer had the privilege of leading the team this morning. We read from Zephaniah 3:17 "The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in His love He will no longer rebuke you but will rejoice over you with singing." I reminded the team that knowing God fiercely protects and delights in us should give us peace especially when we face unfamiliar environments. His protective LOVE provides a refuge and safe place no matter what challenges or fears we may encounter. I encouraged our team to boldly rely on God's presence & protection while rejoicing (even through maybe a few tears of good-bye today) in the security of His presence not only for us but for our students that we will be leaving behind in Sedlcany. 

  Today's english topics were Camping because Czech's love nature ( yes, their country is full of nature) and Culture.  We began the day with discussing english vocabulary words and played the game, Headbands. Oh my goodness, they loved this game. We as their teachers are so proud of the improvement and confidence in their english since Monday. The students were engaging with one another and really practicing. Although every once in a while we would have to remind the class "this is english class, english only please."  Then our class went into an Indirectly direct discussion about how could all this the nature come about, was it chance? luck? fate? or could their be a Higher Being with Intelligent Design at work? We encouraged the students to think through these questions. A few students agreed that nature could not have "just happened" and that there MUST be someone who MADE it all.  Sherry and I encouraged our students to come back this afternoon for our last afterschool activity. 

After our twenty minute morning break, we began our discussion about Culture. Sherry and I wanted to bring in traditions and values. Since the Easter holiday is soon approaching, we decided to focus on how we in America celebrate Easter. We shared that Easter is a celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son from the dead.  We explained that this is called "Passion Week" for us beginning with last Sunday called Palm Sunday where God's Son rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey while the people celebrated His entrance with Palm Branches then a week later the same people killed God's Son; He died and was buried on a Friday. Then on Sunday, God raised His Son from the dead. This is why we celebrate Easter, the resurrection of God's Son from the dead. We also shared that we have the symbol of the Easter egg and how we hide the eggs. Then we asked the Czech students how they celebrate Easter. The students shared that they celebrate Easter on Monday. Boys gather branches and braid colorful ribbons together. Then they go from house to house, whipping girls so that they stay healthy and young all year round. The boys in return receive colorful eggs and chocolate as a reward for their whipping. This is called Sibacka (we as a team were already prepared in our training time about this). The girls shared how much they hate this tradition and don't like being whipped while some of the boys like this tradition, there were a few boys that did not necessarily enjoy this celebration and agreed that they like the American Easter celebration instead. We also had a discussion about freedom & dreams. I asked the student if they had the freedom to dream in the Czech.  One very brave student, who really didn't talk much at all during the week, raised their hand and boldly shared that they like America better because we have the freedom to dream BIG. I'll just let that one sink in. We finished our last day with a time of reflection and encouragement for our students. Sherry and I wrote each student a note of encouragement and invited them to come back to the community center this afternoon for Games and snacks.

This was our fun colorful english conversation board at the school promoting our afternoon activities. Students could write notes to us and we as teachers could write notes to them.

Our afternoon activities were a BLAST. Sherry and I taught our students to play "Mexican Train" with the Dominos. We also played Skipbo with other students as well. We so enjoyed interacting one last time with them before we leave tomorrow back to Prague. We had about seven student come to our event and four of them allowed us to pray for them individually. The prayer of our hearts is for our students is that they would know the Savior is Present and He LOVES them Deeply.

It was the first of "lasts" for our team- last day with our students in the classroom, last day doing afternoon activities, our last day in Sedlcany, tomorrow we will pack up and head back to Prague. We will enjoy a wonderful day sightseeing tomorrow in Prague. But for now we will say good night & sleep.