CA Slovakia Team 2013

Cloudy skies at breakfast with sun shining on the church steeple

We woke this morning to partially cloudy skies that threatened a very rain day. The view from our breakfast perch shows the church steeple with the mountains and the dramatic clouds. While the weather said it would rain all day, we only received a short down pour around lunch. We opened our fifth day with The Moose song, God is so Good and I have Love Like the Ocean. Both the Moose Song and I have Love Like an Ocean made our students laugh at us for the silly gestures that came with it.

Singing I Have Love Like the Ocean (in my soul-see we are pointing to our sole!)

Some of the students and Arianna singing during our songs

Emelia, Adam, Martin and Marek singing

Our activity helped our students learn to count the American way using the index finger as 1 instead of the thumb which is what they are used to. We asked them to line up in order of their birth date without talking. While it was a challenge, we all enjoyed several good laughs and managed to get ourselves in order.

Students listening to instructions for Birthday Line Up!


Going over the months of the year before attempting the Line Up!

During my beginning class, time sped by as we covered directions, vocabulary about the home and did a solid review of all the topics and basic foundations we had covered already this past week. We played many fun games and even created our own town on a map. We are looking forward to figuring out our class performance for next Friday. There will be a short closing ceremony on Friday July 19th where each class will share a song or skit or performance of some sort in English, using the English they have learned over the two weeks prior.
The best part of the day for me was when we had a break time and all my students stayed in the class room and we had conversations and they asked questions and one even asked "What is Apples to Apples?" I'll admit it was a challenge to explain in limited English what "Comparing apples to oranges" meant in order to explain the game concept of Apples to Apples. But I do believe we ended with at least a partial understanding of what the idiom is and what the game idea is.
After the teaching day wrapped up, we did our closing, which is well attended and enjoyed by all with fun questions and daily prize, and I took a half hour to prepare for Monday's lessons. We were given a few options to occupy our afternoon. Some of us ventured to Zilina but most stayed in Martin and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon and evening with one another.
Tomorrow is Saturday and we are looking forward to more adventures in Slovakia as we travel to an arts fair in a nearby village (one of Pastor Randy and my's student lives there and plans to meet us to say hello) and then in the evening we will head up to another castle which has been described as the princess castle!

A beautiful view from a hilltop outside of Martin

As a team, we have been blessed with each other's support and guidance this week as we all faced a few challenges and we have all had uplifting moments. Our daily devotions are drawing us closer to one another and to God and help remind us each day to share God's love with one another and all that we encounter.
Below are a few pictures from our adventure to the waterfall and dinner tonight.