Hello friends!!!!! This is Deborah! I will now share with you about how Day Two of English conversation camp went, from a girl`s perspective. =)
The boys on our team had gone last night, and the girls slept over with the Osaka Christian College girls. Although “lights out” was supposed to be at 11:30, we actually stayed up past 12 watching the students do a Japanese boy band dance, playing with fireworks, and then hanging out with the Japanese students while they were painting their nails. It was very interesting to spend time with the students in the camp setting because in this fun environment, they felt comfortable acting like themselves. In observing the way they spent their free time and interacted with their friends, we came to know them better than the students we visited earlier in the week.
The boys on our team had gone last night, and the girls slept over with the Osaka Christian College girls. Although “lights out” was supposed to be at 11:30, we actually stayed up past 12 watching the students do a Japanese boy band dance, playing with fireworks, and then hanging out with the Japanese students while they were painting their nails. It was very interesting to spend time with the students in the camp setting because in this fun environment, they felt comfortable acting like themselves. In observing the way they spent their free time and interacted with their friends, we came to know them better than the students we visited earlier in the week.
Breakfast was scheduled for 8:30, so Priscilla, Tricia, Ashley, and I were really groggy when we got up, but we found out later that the campers stayed up until 4 or 5 am painting nails! We had breakfast Costco style—muffins, mini croissants, yogurt, and juice. It was refreshing to see this type of food after having eaten rice every morning for a week!
The boys returned around 10am, and we played various games to help the students practice their English. First, we played a trivia game about international cultures. Basically, we stood in a circle and were asked multiple choice questions, and we sat down when we got them wrong. Did you know that out of Tokyo, New York City, Beijing, and London, Beijing is farthest from the North Pole? Neither did I until today. So we learned a few random facts through this game. Next, we played various versions of Bingo. For the first one, we had to find people that fit the characteristics in the grid to get a Bingo. The second one involved making sentences with pictures. Finally, we drew questions from a pile of cards and answered them. These questions ranged from “What is your favorite TV show?” to “What is something that you would like to change about yourself?” The nature of these questions certainly allowed us to get to know the girls even better and talk about more personal things. Some of us were even able to share the gospel with them, so you can definitely be praying that God will work in their hearts to understand and accept it!
After lunch, this group of girls left, but almost immediately after, a second group of Osaka Christian girls came. After playing a game of Fruit Basket, we went to the beach. Immediately, we noticed various differences between this group of girls and the first group. The second group was first-year English Communication students, whereas the first group had been second-year students, so their English skills were weaker, therefore making conversation more difficult for us. Also, the first group was more into makeup and boys, while the second group was more athletic. They played volleyball and dodgeball, but decided to leave after only about an hour because of the heat. While the boys stayed to play football, the girls returned with the students and chatted until dinner.
Since it did not rain like it had yesterday, we were able to have Japanese style BBQ. We grilled vegetables, rice balls, noodles, and slices of meat while trying to avoid mosquitoes. We also did random things, like putting a huge spider into the fire, which reminded me of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
After dinner, we repeated the program that we performed for the first group of girls yesterday. However, since we felt that yesterday’s group probably did not understand the skit or the songs very well, we had Shinsuke (a seminary student from Hamadera Bible Church) introduce every scene of “The Prodigal Daughter,” and we spoke a lot more slowly. Also, Shinsuke had the girls read the Prodigal Son parable aloud, each taking a verse. This fortunately seemed to be a lot more effective in getting the message out to them.
After the program, we split up into groups to play Pictionary with the students. This was very fun and turned out to be very encouraging as well because some of the girls finally became more comfortable with us Americans. My group really told me that they really enjoyed the songs, especially “Praise to Jesus Christ” and “Shout to the Lord.” They liked “Shout to the Lord” so much that they even wanted to sing it again with us! It was so encouraging to see their enthusiasm after worrying so much about the effectiveness of our performance. Please pray for these girls, that the songs we sang will not be only a pretty melody to them, but a meaningful expression of praise to the Lord.
So...that is how our weekend went. Thanks for checking up on us!
~Deborah
P.S. Sorry for the random Asian characters. Apparently the "apostrophe" on this Japanese keyboard is not really an apostrophe.
The boys returned around 10am, and we played various games to help the students practice their English. First, we played a trivia game about international cultures. Basically, we stood in a circle and were asked multiple choice questions, and we sat down when we got them wrong. Did you know that out of Tokyo, New York City, Beijing, and London, Beijing is farthest from the North Pole? Neither did I until today. So we learned a few random facts through this game. Next, we played various versions of Bingo. For the first one, we had to find people that fit the characteristics in the grid to get a Bingo. The second one involved making sentences with pictures. Finally, we drew questions from a pile of cards and answered them. These questions ranged from “What is your favorite TV show?” to “What is something that you would like to change about yourself?” The nature of these questions certainly allowed us to get to know the girls even better and talk about more personal things. Some of us were even able to share the gospel with them, so you can definitely be praying that God will work in their hearts to understand and accept it!
After lunch, this group of girls left, but almost immediately after, a second group of Osaka Christian girls came. After playing a game of Fruit Basket, we went to the beach. Immediately, we noticed various differences between this group of girls and the first group. The second group was first-year English Communication students, whereas the first group had been second-year students, so their English skills were weaker, therefore making conversation more difficult for us. Also, the first group was more into makeup and boys, while the second group was more athletic. They played volleyball and dodgeball, but decided to leave after only about an hour because of the heat. While the boys stayed to play football, the girls returned with the students and chatted until dinner.
Since it did not rain like it had yesterday, we were able to have Japanese style BBQ. We grilled vegetables, rice balls, noodles, and slices of meat while trying to avoid mosquitoes. We also did random things, like putting a huge spider into the fire, which reminded me of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
After dinner, we repeated the program that we performed for the first group of girls yesterday. However, since we felt that yesterday’s group probably did not understand the skit or the songs very well, we had Shinsuke (a seminary student from Hamadera Bible Church) introduce every scene of “The Prodigal Daughter,” and we spoke a lot more slowly. Also, Shinsuke had the girls read the Prodigal Son parable aloud, each taking a verse. This fortunately seemed to be a lot more effective in getting the message out to them.
After the program, we split up into groups to play Pictionary with the students. This was very fun and turned out to be very encouraging as well because some of the girls finally became more comfortable with us Americans. My group really told me that they really enjoyed the songs, especially “Praise to Jesus Christ” and “Shout to the Lord.” They liked “Shout to the Lord” so much that they even wanted to sing it again with us! It was so encouraging to see their enthusiasm after worrying so much about the effectiveness of our performance. Please pray for these girls, that the songs we sang will not be only a pretty melody to them, but a meaningful expression of praise to the Lord.
So...that is how our weekend went. Thanks for checking up on us!
~Deborah
P.S. Sorry for the random Asian characters. Apparently the "apostrophe" on this Japanese keyboard is not really an apostrophe.