Wednesday English Cafe

As I was not talking tonight at the English Cafe, I had the oppurtunity to sit at a table and get to know some of the people who were there.

I found this very interesting and the people on my table were very interesting to talk to, there were two kindergarten teachers who taught together one attended the church (Ili) and the other one didn't (Kata). These are two of the nicest ladies I have ever met.

Kata was very keen to learn english, so much so that she turned up every afternoon to learn english with the kids as well as at the english cafe. Her english was pretty good.

I really enjoyed today and could really feel God working in me and the team as a whole and also between us and the Hungarian team, we were all working very well together and friendships were started to be formed.

Decorating Biscuits

Today's crafts was decorating biscuits - I wonder how many were decorated and how many were eaten!

Below is Peti, he is the cutest boy ever... all the girls on the team wanted to take him home with us... just look at him.... awwww


Ati looks like he is eating his biscuit

Dave and Janos over seeing the biscuit decorating

Concentration

Here's one I made earlier!

Wednesday English Teaching

These girls always had big smiles on them.

Naomi and Matyi learning English

Bence - learning English - He is a great guy

Nemiah teaching

Kids Camp Day Three

2pm was the start of the children's programme and I was down to do the welcoming ie. standing up in the front introducing the afternoon, doing a game of musical statutues and basically making a fool of myself.

Standing up in front of people is something that scares me and makes me nervous, and standing up in front of kids is intimidating for me. But when I got up at the front, it wasn't too bad, God seemed to give me the confidence to do it, and just shows another development of my character - God is using me for his good. Now I think getting up in front of kids is ok, and am up for doing it again. Actually I think after the past two days, I realised I can do whatever I want as long as I put my mind to it and call on God for strength, He can help me do anything.



After the introduction , song singing and bible teaching, we split into groups again - sports, crafts and teaching english. I was doing english with Nemiah and Zsuzsi. Nemiah led it but give me a chance to lead a bit of it as well - it was good doing this, I wasn't nervous at all. These kids are very well behaved and obedient and also keen to learn. I am growing in my working with kids and am enjoying everything that am enjoying getting my feet wet, so to speak!

Wednesday - Day Three

Another day and more fun to be had. Again the day started with breakfast at 8.30am, devotions at 9.30am and preparation for the day at 10.30am.

I decided to do english teaching for kids today, stepping out of my comfort zone again - God is doing wonders for my development on this trip.

So the morning for me was spent preparing the english lessons with Nemiah, Tim and Zsuzsi. Today's lesson was on food, what a lovely topic. So we prepared wordsearchers, flashcareds etc on this topic - english preparation takes the longest as there are 3 age groups to prepare for. Altogether it took us nearly two hours and at the end it got quite stressful. But I reliased that God would help us when we got there in the afternoon.

Lunch time came and again it was Pork, and no substitute for me, so I had to go hungry. I was starting to feel really frustrated with this food business. I think God was trying to make me grow more patients by sending me to a country where eat a lot of eggs and porks, two things I am allergic too. He has a funny sense of humour.

Diver Dave

The place where we ate dinner, there were loads of weird old things hanging around and Dave took a fancy to a diver's helmet and came to dinner wearing it... but he discovered a problem, he could not get his food through the glass.. so he had to take it off or starve!

English Cafe

During dinner, the nerves hit me and I got a bit scared about doing my talk on Identity at the English Cafe - it would be my first real time of standing in front of people and it was in Hungary with a translator - I always seem to do things the hard way.

However, when I got to the church, my nerves seemed to disappear, but they quicky reappeared again when instead of the 15 people that we expected to come, 45 people actually turned up. This was exciting to see but nerve wracking for me - we quickly had to get more tables and chairs for everyone.

It was great encouragement both for the team and also for the church to see all these people turn up in order to learn a big of English from us and to hear a little talk on God.

Ava introduced the night and we all stood up and introduced ourselves, telling them our names and where we were from. One thing about the Hungarian people that I noticed as soon as I got into the country is that they are very friendly welcoming people - a bit like the Irish!

To start off the night and break the ice a bit, we played a game called Bingo - everyone was given a piece of paper with different things about the London team on them, and the aim of the game was to go around all the team members and find out which person fitted the squares. There was lots of buzz and they seemed to really enjoy the game and the ice was finally broken.

My nerves were going crazy at this point as it was now time for me to get up and speak.

The experience wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Esther, who was translating for me was very good and even though we both messed up some lines, it did not seem to matter to everyone.

People were listening well and laughing at the right points which relaxed me and in the end it just felt like Esther and I were just standing there having a conversation together and the rest of them were just listening to us, that was a good thing as it took away my nerves. But also my prayers before hand were being answered, and one in particular - for me to speak slowly... which I did, amazingly for me!

There is no evidence of me speaking as no one took any photos of me, boo hoo!

When I had finished my talk, there were table discussions. This time was to be used to introduce one another and talk about what they thought identity was. These discussions went well and it seemed that my talk went down really well and people enjoyed it. And the point I wanted to get across about our identity being in Christ and nothing else, seemed to get across, which was fantastic.

God was definately with me when I stood up at the front, I felt a calmness when I got up there and could really feel His presence with me which was good. He helped open people's ears and let the message sink in. My nevers were replaced with joy and amazement again in the power of God.

I ended the night really looking forward to Wednesday and what God had in store for me and the other team members.

Tuesday Kids Camp Photos

These are just some photos of Tuesday.

First we have Ying Hwei and Judit welcoming the kids, giving them name tags and stamping their passports for turning up and also for saying their bible verse correctly.


Then we have Anna, who is for some reason dressed up as Scout. She was today's Bible teacher - as it was in Hungarian, I have no idea what was being said, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.

Crafts today was shoulder bags, which the kids all loved decorating.

Here the kids are learning English, I think Nick is teaching them the English word for Nose.

This is a game which Steve and Dave loved playing with the kids. The game: There are two teams and one person from each team was blind folded while the other members of them team directed them in picking up balls. And if being blindfolded wasn't cruel enough, Dave and Steve moved the balls on them once they got near them - how cruel...

Tuesday - Day Two

Today, I discovered something - I discovered that I was very attractive.... very attractive to the Hungarian Mosquitos - how did I make this discovery, well it was because I had loads of bites on me... my blood must be very nice. Always knew the Irish were the best! At least something finds me attractive, even if it is mosquitos!!!

Breakfast again was at 8.30am, and this time it was Salami, not eggs.... after we ate, we had devotions and then prepared for the day ahead - second day of kids camp and first nigt of the English cafe, so a busy day ahead.

As I was down to speak to the English cafe tonight, I was given the afternoon off to prepare for that, so my morning was pretty quiet too, as was re reading my talk, and making sure it was ok.

We had lunch and then headed down to the church with resources in hand for more fun with the kids at the church.

Whilst everyone was either playing sport, teaching english or making crafts, Ava, Nemiah and I set up the church in preparation for the English cafe. We were secting 15 people but we thought we would be optimisitc and set up enough table and chairs for 25 people in case peole brought their friends.

The children's camp seemed to go well today again, although there were less kids which was a bit discouraging and the timing seemed to be up the creek, but hey it all worked out in the end so that was ok.

The kids seem to love the english sports we have introduced to them e.g cricket! and the parachute is still a hugh favourite of theirs.... it is a huge favourite of mine too, it can never be boring.

Some of them can already speak good English and some of them are still learning, but even so, its still better than my Hungarian. But they seem to love the English lessons and Nick is a great teacher and makes things very interesting for them, and they listen intently.

BBQ at Church

The church invited us to have a BBQ with them on Monday evening, which would be a time of getting to know them more - we played games and ate some lovely food as well as having good conversations. A lot of them could speak some English and some were really good - putting me to shame as my Hungarian is rubbish!

This ended the first day of our Wetfoot mission in Hungary, it was a good day and God was working in the team - helping us use our individual gifts to serve each other and the church at Nyritelek.

More Photos of the First Day

Below are some photos of the english lessons....




And here is Nem and Jamiey leading the crafts and the kids enjoying designing their glasses.

Sports

As I mentioned before I was doing sports, this was good but it took a while for the kids to settle with us. We played relay races, dodge ball and then we introduced the parachute to them. They loved this, and it seemed it was going to turn into a hit with them all that week.

Over all the first day seemed to go well. It was only day one so trials and errors were expected and we can learn from them. I was looking forward to the rest of the afternoon's with the kids and see the work God would do during these times.

Day One of Kids Camp

There were about 25 kids who turned up today and it seemed to go well - we taught them to sing 'God is so Good' in English but I think like me, they might have been a bit shy - but am sure they will get used to us strangers from London.

We introduced ourselves, saying who we were and what country we originated from. You may remember reading before that there were 12 of us from 9 different countries. But now with Zsuzsi on board, there are now actually 13 of us from 9 different countries.

I found it strange speaking through a translator for the first time in my life, as you have to wait double the time for a response to what you just said.

Monday - the beginning of the Programmes

Monday saw the start of the Children's camp, so the morning was spent in preparation for this - getting the craft, sports and english lessons ready for the afternoon.

I decided that I would help out with the sports as I was bit scared to do anything else, I came on this trip to get out of my comfort zone and work with kids as never really been comfortable doing this as am actually quite shy, but thought I would start with an easy option. But was it the easiet option?

At 1.30pm, we walked down to the church as the kids session was due to start at 2pm. By this time the nerves had hit me. Was I cut out for kids work? I was about to see in the next two weeks.

More Lakeside Pictures

Below are more photos of the afternoon at the lake... including a very cool 'WetFoot' photo... we were in Hungary to get our feet wet, and thats what we did, except Steve who forgot to take his trainers off! Can you identify the feet?

An afternoon at the Lake

We left the church and drove to Sestogygyfundo, where we were treated to an ice cream and some gorgeous scenery as we walked around a beautiful lake and sat and relaxed for a while in the sun. It was a lovely relaxing time and great interacting with everyone from the church and getting to know them. This was important as we would be working closely with them during the next two weeks.