VBS

So today was our first day of VBS the Joy English Club. This is one of our main ministries that we come to help with. Also VBS is completely left up to us to organize, granted we do have some Japanese helpers, but it is mainly us putting it on.

Our theme for the program this year is the Creation week (Genesis 1). However, we only have 5 days for VBS, so we taught the first 2 days of Creation today; the creation of light and the separation of waters and the expanse.

How VBS is broken down is as follows; the children arrive at 9:30am, and periodically stroll in as the day progresses. We play with them for a few minutes to try to get them more comfortable. The Japanese are very reserved people, quite and humble, however their children are just the opposite, I don’t know what happens to them in the growth process but they get that way. We started by playing some games mixed with songs. Many children that come, come from unbelieving families, however, they are attracted to the English and Americans teaching it.

After teaching the kids their body parts in English we started singing songs like Father Abraham which gets the kids involved. Then we started playing games, and everything we do we incorporate English, the parents really like that and we get to minister to these gets just by speaking English to them.

The kids are then sent off to English lessons. We divide them up in the specific age groups and levels of their English. Being that we only had about 12 kids today we only had 2 groups, young and old, and most were young. I was teaching the more advanced kids and I only had 2 of them. We went over greetings, introductions, farewells, and the Alphabet. They did very well and I had Megumisan helping me, she is a member of the church here and a native, so translations were great.

After the English lessons we had snack time, and being that light and darkness were separated we did Oreo cookies for the snack. I think the kids really liked it. When the kids finished their snack Isaiah taught the first two days of the Creation week and I prepared the craft upstairs. As soon as the lesson was over the kids headed for the fourth floor for craft time. Monday’s craft involved filling a plastic bottle with the children’s favorite color of glitter. Then we filled the bottles half with water and half with oil so you could see a separation to achieve an effect of light and darkness.

When craft time was over so was VBS, so the children came up to each of the Americans and say goodbye to us in English and left. It was a great time, and being that it was the first day of VBS went rather smoothly and we hope that tomorrow will be just a great. I will keep you posted what happens tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers.