Ireland Update 3

I'm writing this on Thursday/Friday....and the days are starting to run together some. As we have gotten into our focused ministry time, we have naturally faced more ups and downs. But God is still very very good and He is working in my life and I'm sure in the lives of the others as well as God working through us in the lives of others.

Our mornings primarily focus on preparation time for the events of the day. Tracy Balzer, our third JBU professor/team leader, helps us get things set up and make sure that we have everything we need. After lunch we do our household chores, then head out to Killyleagh to set stuff up for Kids Club!

Each day of Kids Club focuses on a different "super power" of God that He wants us to practice too. We have a short skit during our big group time to get started which tries to set the stage for the lesson of the day, which provides a Bible story exemplifying whatever characteristic we are teaching that day. We also have a memory verse which the kids learn, and we alternate between crafts and games for our third rotation.

Once the kids have all gone home, we have dinner and then get geared up for whatever our evening activity is. That varies a bit more from day to day. Then, when we get back to our cottages for the night, we have tea time/dessert and a chance to debrief some and pray for one another. So far our schedule has certainly kept us busy!

Oh, and the weather has remained ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. It has only rained a tiny bit on one of the days that we have been here, and the temperature has been in the 60s a lot! Everyone here keeps telling us we brought the nice weather from the States - and it's been great for our sports camps and such! It's also made it much easier to enjoy our time here. The rain is forecasted to come back next week - but I am fully enjoying the sunny days while they're here!

Day 6 - Monday, June 3
The first day of Kids Club was rough for me. My expectations, based in a large part on my church's VBS back home, were higher than the reality. We only had the kids for an hour and a half, and it was right after school.....so the time flew by and the kids were definitely on the rambunctious side. Jonathan (one of the JBU students) and I are the team teachers for the P3-4 group. The British grade system is different than America's.....but if I have it straight I think our team is the equivalent of 2-3 grade. The first day we had 8 or 9, with just two boys. Jonathan and I are switching off who does the lesson and who does the Bible verse. So Monday I started off with the lesson. By the time I had tried to let the kids introduce themselves and lay a few basic ground rules (that didn't help behavior as much as I would have liked), I barely had enough time for the basic lesson before our 20 minutes were up. So I kind of felt like a failure, and just rather overwhelmed by the kid interruptions.

Our superpower of the day was compassion, and our story was off the two blind men who were calling out to Jesus for mercy. The point was that the crowds did not show compassion because they were simply trying to shush the men, whereas Jesus showed compassion by providing the help that the men needed. As I taught the story and asked questions afterward, I definitely felt more like the crowds than like Jesus. I certainly ended up shushing a lot more than showing compassion.....

There were some encouraging things that happened during the afternoon though. The kids got really attached to several of our team members, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the people (and especially the fellas) on our team take the time to play with the kids. Also, when I asked questions about the skit for the day, the kids did a surprisingly good job at making the connections between what the "actors" had done and what they should have done instead to be compassionate.

The end of club was pretty chaotic....and I think my introvert side came out and that put me over the edge into the dumps. I just had to get alone for a while and realize that my expectations were not very fair to the kids, and to work on getting my focus back on God for a while. I guess I had forgotten about how challenging working with kids could be, and only really remembered the good times.... Our team was great at just encouraging me through that though, and reminding me that it was the first day and that day two would probably be better!

The church ladies provided us with dinner, and then we headed out to a field of pitches for sports camp with the teenagers. After my Kids Club experience and after everything I had heard ahead of time about the rudeness and disrespect of the Killyleagh youth, I was pretty apprehensive about how things would go. David Wallace (also known as Wally) circled our team up to pray before we started, and I was just praying that God would really give me/us a love for the kids.

The boys who came all wanted to play their football (our soccer), but there were also some girls hanging out. So several of we team girls kicked a soccer ball around with them for a bit, then we and the Killyleagh girls joined with a few of our team guys in playing Ultimate Frisbee. We had lots of fun at that, and I was abnormally successful (for me) at executing basic throws and catches! We had a "half time" when two of our team members shared a testimony, one to each of the two different groups. Then we played more games.

From everything I heard from my other team members, the boys lived up to their reputation. But I really wasn't around them at all, and so I had a great time with the girls we played with. So for me, Sports Camp was the highlight of the day....and I consider that a blessing from God :) The leaders have basically decided that none of our gals will share their testimony around the teen boys, because it's just not a good setting for that. So I don't know yet how much interaction I'll really have with the teen boys. A praise, though, is that the guy who shared his testimony with them on Monday said he really felt filled with love for them while he was talking to them, even though they were evidently being obvious in their flippancy about the whole thing.

Day 7 - Tuesday, June 4
The second day of Kids Club ran much much better! The kids weren't perfectly behaved, of course, but they understood better how things were going. What's more, about half of the kids had obviously worked hard at Monday's memory verse at home, and they were able to say it with minimal help! Both Jonathan and I were in that day's skit, about kindness. One of our resident trouble maker skit characters took Jonathan's laser glasses during a class, and so the teacher dismissed class so people would help him find them. But I and the other characters except one just ran off instead of helping - as an example of a lack of kindness. Our kids liked having us in the skit, and they were clearly paying attention to it based on what they were able to tell us afterward :)

When I asked them about the skit during our lesson time, I made sure that they recognized that my character's behavior was not good. I made the comment that I hoped that in real life I acted more kindly than that. And one of our little gals jumped in and assured me I was kind. It made my heart happy that she was considerate enough to say that :) Also, our team members were really great about checking with me after Kids Club to see how the second day had gone, after the first rough day.

Tuesday evening we had a game night for the elementary-aged kids. The older elementary kids played football, but the younger kids played other games more like Duck Duck Goose. There was some concern among the parents about their little kids just wandering off from the pitches where we were playing, so I and some of the other team members ended up just kind of standing around the perimeter to keep an eye out for anything unusual. So I didn't get to play with the kids much, which was rather disappointing. But at one point a girl came up to me and started tossing a Frisbee to me, and our little circle just kept growing! So that was fun :)

Whenever we play Frisbee with the kids (which a lot of them are super good at, even though they say they haven't played before) we make a point of calling the person's name before we throw the Frisbee to them, since it helps to learn who's who that way. And my name quickly turned into Easter once again, instead of Esther. That's a nickname that has plagued me off and on over the years....but it was sweet that they wanted to give me a nickname I guess. Here for the first time it became Easter Bunny though, haha :)


So, I know I'm still a couple of days behind....but I had this much written up so decided to get it posted. This weekend will be a good break, before we dive into our second week of ministry. I greatly appreciate all your continued prayers!!!