Last week we had English Summer Camp. It went really well. We had 20 kids the first day, and 10 or so the second day. We had four chapel times and two English lessons. It was challenging at first; I was teaching the more advanced class, which ranged anywhere from kindergarteners to 5th graders. My first lesson was too simple for the older kids, but for my second lesson I arrived at something sufficiently challenging to keep them interested: verb tenses. Evil things, those.
The theme of camp was, "Honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt. 19:19) We couldn't think of a good children's song that illustrated that point, so I pretty much wrote a new one based on the song that goes, "Love, love, love, love, the gospel in a word is love," and so on. If you haven't heard it, it's surprisingly gloomy. So I kind of took that concept, switched the lyrics around, put it in a major key, gave it motions, and voila! Children's song.
This week is our first week of English Summer School. Every morning, we start out at 10 AM with a bunch of songs in English, then move on to a Bible story, an hour long English lesson, lunch, craft and/or game, and then free time until their mothers pick them up. So far it's been really fun. The kids are all beginner, so we're going over the alphabet and other basics. I love the kids we've had so far; they've been eager to learn.
On Wednesdays, we have summer school at a local park. It's hot, but fun. This park is huge; I think they said it was 3 square kilometers. It's got a huge indoor play area, with an air-conditioned room where we have our English lesson, then a small area where the kids can play in a shallow pool. There are outdoor playgrounds, rice fields, apple groves, and the occasional goat pen. It's fairly awesome. The kids love our park days, and we usually have the most kids at those days.
On weekends, Laura and I usually take the train to Utsunomiya to go shopping and maybe bump into the occasional other foreigner. This last Saturday we met an Irishman and a Frenchman who are here to teach English. It's interesting being a foreigner in Japan; it's like you're instantly part of some club. When you see each other, it's weird not to acknowledge one another's presence. There's this instant bond of, "We're both different from everybody else." It's nice, but some of the other foreigners we've met have been kind of creepy. I'm still holding out hope that I can make some other foreign friends while I'm here.
Anyway, we've got two more days of English Summer School this week, then we have next week off. We're going to stay at the home of some church members for the first part of the week, then on Wednesday, we're going to visit Tokyo! I'm excited. I'll let you know how all that goes.
Ta!
