I can only speak for myself for most of this (and I think in my humble opinion that I am having one of the best experiences so don't read into things too much...) since it has been difficult to use the internet at the church since we are so busy when we are there. For any who do not know, I am the teacher for the middle school 8th and 9th graders. A couple of my students know a good amount of English most know a medium amount, and a couple know very very little. Yesterday was our first day of camp. In the morning, we met our students, sang praise and worship, then took our class to memorize our verse. I am very proud of my class - we memorized the verse with full participation (including dramatic motions) in only 25 minutes. For the rest of the class time we were able to play a game called King Frog. The game is a combination of simple English words with motions, memory, and speed. This game was good for those students who didn't know much English. We then recited our verse (with the dramatic motions) in front of everyone. Each class had a turn to say the verse in front of all the other classes (there are 11 classes I think). Each class was required to "pass" Esther and Debbie's approval (camp directors) before they could go to lunch. After lunch (don't ask me what it was) we went to our second class time. This class period was for us to work on our skits. Each skit must involve a song, motions, a memory verse, and each student must have his or her own lines. Each class will practice each day and perform the skit in front of the camp this Friday. So far, the only thing our class knows for sure is that one of the students who plays the "good soil" (parable of the seeds on the path, thorns, good soil, etc) says, "I want to drive a car!" and another good soil will reply, "No, that is not your purpose!" As you might have guessed, the students are writing their own lines........we will see how this goes! But they seem to be having a lot of fun doing it and are getting practice with their English. After "writing" our skit, we played English Bingo with Holly's 7th grade class while all the elementary kids played some Korean games in the main room. After English Bingo, we worked on writing some sentences about the students likes and dislikes.
Day 2! Today was mainly dominated by a trip to go sledding. We memorized our verses on the way to sledding and had to say them before going sledding after lunch. The students all had a blast! It was a good sized sledding hill and I fell off the tube once and flipped up in the air once. I was accident prone today but did not get hurt thankfully. No one got hurt to my knowledge, which is a praise when 100 kids are going down such a fast hill (though Treleen may be very sore tomorrow from her spill as a result of my flipping off the tube). My group was able to practice a lot of English on the van to and from sledding and learn all the words from every PSP and Ipod menu, haha. For dinner the teacher's assistants (mine is Won-Hyung), teachers, and others connected with the EM camp went to this very fancy hotel. The hotel was the nicest in Mokpo. An elder of the church, who happens to be the CEO of the only Ferry company to a vacation island off the shore of Mokpo, treated us to the best buffet of my life. My four plates of food and 3 of dessert has me full 3 hours later, which is rare for a meal. It has me so full that I am very tired. We have a busy 3 days ahead of us to finish up the camp! Hopefully I can have some of the girls blog soon should we get a few spare minutes at the church. Please continue to pray for these kids that they will be open to God's Word and that they will keep working hard on their English.
I could say much more but I think it is best if I wrap it up. I love it here so far :D I love the people, the culture, and even some of the food. A lot of the food. Thank you all for following us, we will update as often as possible!
