I have already learned so much about teaching English just from the last 24 hrs. You do not realize how many idioms or phrases you say during the day until you have a group of seven girls staring at you confused by what you said! For example, I walked into my cabin and asked the girls what trouble they were causing and one of them immediately was explaining very sincerely that they were not getting into trouble. I tried to explain to them that it is just a say and that I did not think they were causing any trouble.
The part of e-camp that I was most nervous about-teaching English lessons- ended up turning out the best and the part I was least nervous about-doing the Bible study (Bible Ex)- ended up being the most challenging. I am teamed up with two other awesome staff members, Ryan, an American, and Priska, an Austrian, to teach the Beginner level English class. Together as a team, we worked great with one another and complimented one another very well while teaching. Our students responded really well and were very engaged! Praise the Lord! I was very nervous about the English lessons and afraid that I would not be an effective and clear teacher, please continue to pray that my team would be able to continue to effectively communicate and meet the language needs of our students.
In contrast, Bible study did not go very well today. The language barrier proved to be much more difficult when it came to talking about spiritual things. Christian vocabulary/message, no matter how simplified, is very hard to teach to others when using a language students are not completely familiar or fluent in. In addition, I learned, very quickly, today that the German Bible has many different names for the books of the Bible. For example, the first five books of the Bible are called Moses 1, Moses 2...3,4,5 and that is only the first five books! Unfortunately, I do not think I was unable to get very much of the gospel or any spiritual conversation going. None of my campers come from a consistent Christian background, they all go to church occassionally, but I am assuming mostly for holidays. Be in prayer that I would be able to meet them on their linguistical and spiritual level this week!
A highlight of today though was our afternoon activity! We drove all the campers about 10 minutes away to this beautiful river that widens into a bay, then narrows back down on the other side. This river was surrounded on all sides by gigantic, majestic mountains! It was THE most beautiful place I have ever been! When we got there, we hiked 10-15 minutes to a bridge on one end of the river and went bridge jumping! The bridge was about 7.5-10 meters high! But we were jumping into the most crystal blue water I have ever seen! The water is so clear from running off the mountains that you can see pretty far down into the river! Unfortunately all my pictures are on my camera and not my phone so you will have to wait for pictures until I get back!
It has been so cool to see how God is meeting the needs of our team and working in the lives of the Austrians. Since being here, I have grown to love this country deeply and the people here. They are such sweet, hard working, and giving people who are in desperate need to know about the love of Jesus Christ. I am so appreciative of all your prayers and look forward to being able to share more with you!
Until next time,
Mikayla
P.s. I apologize for any incorrect grammar or misspellings in my blog posts. I have been writing them on my iPad, which is rather difficult to write well formatted posts!
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