(Display Name not set)August 2004 Archives

We have one more week of camps to go!

Although I’ve enjoyed the last seven weeks, I’m looking forward with great expectation to settling in at my station for the year! I feel like my belongings are scattered across Taiwan (even though they’re only in three different locations) and I’ll be very happy when they are all in one place. The whole idea of being a pilgrim and sojourner has taken on new meaning!

This next week Ben, Chase, Mai, Ginger, Jo, Isaac, and I will be in Matsu and Daniel, Jo’el, and Rebekah will be at Ying Pan. The camp in Ying Pan will be similar to the other camps we’ve been doing this summer. The Matsu camp will be unlike anything that we’ve done so far. We’ll be teaching 171 kids that range in age from 13-16. We spent several hours this afternoon going over the schedule and trying to get a general idea of what our week “might” be like. However, after the last several weeks here in Taiwan I know that our schedule will change at least once during the week!

Some of our team members are still struggling with poor health. Please pray that the Lord would restore health and strength. Also pray that we will have wisdom, creativity, and plenty of enthusiasm this next week! We’re all feeling tired and definitely realize that we can’t do this on our own! Thanks to all of you who come along beside us in prayer. We couldn’t do this without your support!

Katrina Nisly

Signing off from Shuangsi

In all my short travels here in Taiwan I've found that one thing still amazes me no matter where I am. It's the beauty of Taiwan in all its different forms. Life in a very busy state as it was in Taipei to the quiet nature sounds heard in the mountains.

As you know my team is in Shaungshi for the next week. It’s been a huge blessing to be living inside a village with food stands, restaurants, stores, and of course drink stands. It is quite a switch over from Taichung County, although I miss the countryside. On a clear night you could see the stars shining above in the sky. I’m so glad and thankful for being able to see them here as well. Oh the small pleasures of life!

We started our first day of camp today. This camp has approximately 50 students from two different schools. I was privileged to test the students this morning to find out their English levels. Most of the students are at a very very basic level. Some didn’t have English names. I do have to say that Josh gets the highest honor for giving out English names. I was blessed to name a little girl this morning I named her Nikki. I think she liked here name. I hope so! It’s a good name.

Isaac and I are teaching the highest class this week without the help of a team assistant. That will be a new adventure for the two of us, but it went very well today. Altogether we have 7 students in our class and I am looking forward to getting to know them more. One of the girls seems to laugh a lot. I think that everything must be bringing her bundles of joy! The funny thought is that, I was very much like her when I was her age. Poor Isaac will have to make do with two giggly girls! One small and the other big! I wonder who that could be?

Please continue to pray that the Lord would restore health into out teams.Thank you so much for all your support!

May the Lord truly bless you to over flowing!

Mai Lewis ~ Luke 1:37

Our character quality for the day was obedience. In our first small group I taught our class three simplified “keys” of obedience. This is how it went:

Katrina: “The first key to obedience is ‘I will do it right away.’” (I explain what “doing it right away” means and Tim translates for me.)
Katrina: “Now, I want you to repeat after me.” (Tim translates and I get ready to point to the words on the board)
Katrina: “I will”
Class: “I will”
Katrina: “do it”
Class: “do it”
Katrina: “right away!”
Class: “right away!”
Katrina: “I will do it right away!”
Class: “I will do it right away!”
Katrina: “Again!” (Tim translates)
Katrina: “I will do it right away!”
Class: “I will do it right away!”

We continue to repeat it several times with simple motions until I feel that most of the 15 kids are saying the phrase. Then we go on and follow this pattern for learning the other two “I wills” of obedience. “I will do it with a smile” and “I will do it all the way.” I then had them right these out in their notebooks. After I felt that they were familiar with the sound as well as the way the words looked I divided them up into two teams to play a game. I wrote out two sets of the “I wills” and cut them apart. On the count of three we dropped the pieces in the middle of each team and then watched to see which team could put the words in order the fastest. The kids here have a strong sense of competition so it was quite the sight to see them scramble to get those words in order! We had them play this several times to see if they could beat their previous times of completion. I don’t know how much of this lesson they will remember but I guess the most important thing is that they had fun!

In our second small group Tim taught the kids how to make a more complicated paper airplane. We did this to show them that it’s important to listen carefully and “obey” each instruction that they are given in order for their plane to turn out. After every child was the proud owner of a paper airplane we went up to the balcony for the first flight. Before we let them fly their planes I had them repeat several times in English what they were holding in their hands, “Paper airplane! Paper airplane!”

I don’t know how useful “paper airplane” is in a child’s vocabulary but I figured they should know in English what they just made. Sometimes it is so hard to know what kind of vocabulary should be taught, especially when they practically don’t know any English. But we decided that this week we would focus on having fun with the kids instead of feeling like we needed to drill, drill, and drill some more. Most of these kids have experienced a lot of trauma in the past few weeks and they’re not really interested in going to an English camp that feels like school. So we’re trying to have fun with them and show them that we love them and want to be their friends.

Please pray that the Lord would give us wisdom to know what to teach and a large dose of creativity so that the kids can remember this camp as a fun time with the “American teachers.”

Katrina, writing from Taichung