Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Holiday Club: Day 1!


We started the day bright and early by visiting Richmond Primary School, where we
danced and then taught them some dancing as well while the boys (and quite a few girls) went outside to play games. Brianna and Katie led the teaching of ballet, and the end result was pretty amazing.
 
We had lunch and team devotions, then the afternoon was spent decorating the hall and taking a walk around Ballygawley (sunshine!). We did our very best to make the hall look like a circus, and I must say I think we did pretty awesome. Unfortunately, by the end of the night some of the decorations had deteriorated, but it was nice while it lasted.
 
We split up into two groups for dinner before heading back to the hall for day one of the Holiday Club. It was a little crazy as kids first began to come in, but we all slowly got our bearings and began to interact a little more. Due to technical difficulties, we couldn't sing until the very end, but we heard the story of Jesus' first miracle: turning water into wine. Mrs. Susan and Katie performed day one of the drama Monty The Python's Flying Circus (get it?), in which Monty the Python tells Mrs. Susan all about how his circus is centered around Jesus Christ.
 
We split up into four groups based on school level. I'm with P2/3, the second youngest group. First we had craft, then games (that was pretty crazy), then memory verse, then worksheets, and back to the main room. Jenna and Rebecca demonstrated how they could turn water into wine, but the kids quickly pointed out that that was not a miracle.
 
All in all, the first day was a success. There were rough patches here and there, but we had around 50 kids, I believe is what someone told me.
 
After the club, the youth walked down the soccer field to play some football. And when I say football, I mean soccer. Our football is American football; football is just soccer. It's a big sport in Ireland and Northern Ireland, so we were hardly playing seriously (Americans versus Irish? No.). Though I didn't play at all... I'm a bit too broken in the knees for running around a field (I'm such an old woman at heart). Instead, I fooled around on the playground with one of the Irish girls and we had lots of fun with that.
 
After one asthma attack scare (she's fine, don't worry), we headed home. Katie and I chatted with our host mother Jane for a while over tea about everything from books to funny kids to spiders before heading up to bed. That's one of my favorite parts about this trip: getting to know your host family. They're always very interesting and you can usually find one or two things you have in common. Something about a nice hot cup of Irish tea makes conversation so much better.
 
Tomorrow we visit a high school (or college, as they call it here) before being all touristy and visiting some Marble Caves. Then it'll be day two of Holiday Bible Club!
 
--Dexter
 
What you can pray for: Pray that the kids will come back to club again tomorrow and bring a friend or two, and also that we'll have enough hands to handle that. Pray that all the wrinkles will be smoothed out and we can not only give the kids a good time, but really teach them as well. Pray for rest and health for the team.

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