KECY English camp promotions!

It's Saturday night here in Bardejov. That means it's been two days since I've last posted on this blog and I've got a lot of catching up to do.

Friday morning we woke up at 6:30 in the morning (quite a change from our normal sleeping habits on this trip) and started getting ready to leave for the schools by 7:30. We packed up Ed's projector, his computer, his stack of promotional flyers, and a few posters and headed off to the schools to promote KECY English camp!

Our first presentation of the morning was in a classroom of about 25 students who I would guess to be early high school age. We had a group of 6 of us presenting; Ed, Grant, Phil, and I plus two Slovak guys (Jan and Stano) who served as translators. After we all introduced ourselves to the class, Ed presented the basic details of the camp along with a look at the schedule of a typical day. After this, we showed a short promotional video using Ed's computer and projector that we had brought into the classroom.

When the video ended, we had all of the students clear their desks out of the middle of the classroom. With Stano translating, I explained the rules and led the class in a game of "Egg, Chicken, Raptor" (if you've never played this game before you're really missing out).

After we finished with that first classroom, our group split up for the rest of the day. Phil and I went with Stano, While Grant stayed with Ed and Jan. Since we had about an hour and a half until we had to be at the next school, Phil, Stano, and I walked to the town square for some mid-morning ice cream. When, we arrived at the next school for our 10:30 presentation, we found out that Wendi would be joining us for the first two of the three presentations we would be doing at that school.

All three of our presentations at this school we're in the same room and they rotated classes in and out. The first class had about 15 students, the second 10, and the third 8. The ages of the students ranged from 14-18. Each time I presented on the details of the camp and Phil led the game (with Stano doing all of the translating of course).

We broke out the game "Battleship" (a game Grant had found online) for this school. It involves teams of students attempting to come up with lists of English words in specific categories in order to sink the ships of opposing teams. If you want a better explanation you should ask Phil (he got real good at explaining the rules by the end of the day).

With each of the presentations at this school we had some extra time at the end (we were responsible for filling the entire 45 minute class period). We used this time to get to know the students names and attempt some simple conversation with them. We also played a game (which we quickly learned was a huge hit) where they would pick a hard-to-say Slovakian word and then laugh at us as we butchered the pronunciation.

After our last presentation ended at 1:15, Phil and I walked back to Ed and Wendi's house to debrief on the day with Ed and Grant. We all went out for lunch at a traditional Slovak restaurant and I was able to try another great Slovak dish, pyrogie! It was small doughy balls filled with sweet jam, topped with chopped onions and bacon. When I see it in writing it sounds.......interesting, at best. However, it tasted quite good. Thus far I've been very impressed with Slovak food.

In the evening we went back to the youth group at Ed and Wendi's church. It was a similar format to last week, where we started with some classic youth group games, sang some songs and heard a message. I was given the opportunity to be the speaker for the night, which was quite an enjoyable experience. I've never given a whole talk through an interpreter before and I found it required a lot of concentration to speak slowly, clearly and stop for translation every sentence or two.

It would be safe to say that I was exhausted when I finally hit the sack on Friday night. This was definitely our busiest but easily the most memorable and fulfilling day we've had thus far. In helping with the promotions for the KECY English camp I was able to gain a further appreciation for the work that Ed and Wendi do here in Bardejov. After this round of presentations I find myself really wishing I would still be here for the camps in July.

When we woke up on Saturday morning, Wendi had a big pancake breakfast prepared for us! After downing our food and cleaning up the kitchen, the 3 of us non-Rumbolds + the whole Rumbold family headed off to the park to play basketball (while the kids played on the playground). We met a friend of Ed's named Yuro at the courts and the 5 of us played a few intense games of 3-on-2 basketball. After we had been playing for awhile, another Slovak guy named Dano showed up and we were able to switch to 3-on-3. After playing ball for a couple of hours we were all tired and satisfied!

This evening we went to the Saturday night college-aged youth group at Ed and Wendi's church. Phil was the speaker tonight and gave a great talk on the biblical character Abraham. We are all very grateful for the kindness everyone at this church has shown us in making us feel welcome and even letting us speak at their gatherings multiple times. I know I'm genuinely going to miss these people when I leave here.

It's getting pretty late now so I'm going to wrap this post up and head off to bed. Unfortunately I don't have any new pictures to post, so I'll throw up some good ones from earlier in our trip.

Until next time, this is Ben signing off from Bardejov.