Kids' English Club has begun!

April marked the beginning of Kids' English Club, an English outreach to Elementary School aged kids taking place once a month on a Saturday morning at each of the two churches. Susan's the main teacher but the whole Murray clan is very much involved and it's definitely a team effort.

The first one was at Kabe Chapel on April 9th. Everyone was a bit anxious as it was everyone's first time and no one knew quite what to expect. A team of people had passed out flyers in front of the two Elementary Schools in the Kabe area the day before, but how many would come??? Susan created registration forms and an individual attendance booklet but how would it be organized / collected? What about the 1,000JPY registration fee and 100JPY class fee?

There were (I think) 13 Elementary School aged children there on the first day, of which about half were not members of Kabe Chapel. So awesome! :) Susan led the kids in basic dialog (like "Hello", "How are you?", etc), a different version of the alphabet song, a number song, and a few other songs with new vocabulary. The curriculum that we're using is from genkienglish.com (link) and is very songs-based. Susan created a lot of motions to go with the songs so everyone was very active most of the time. One of the quiet times was during the Bible story time. Yuka-san (in pic above with the bilingual name tags on her back) is our Japanese Bible story helper and she reads the Children's Bible in Japanese and then Susan reads & acts it out after in English, after going through some of the main vocabulary. Susan taught an hour and a half of English non-stop! It was a great start but there were a few things that could be tweaked, so for the next one, which took place two weeks later at Koyo Chapel...

The Murrays' prepared a craft (Easter eggs! - first time for probably all of them) which engaged the kids as soon as they came in, we had drinks ready for snack time, Susan had prepared more games and more material, and the seating arrangement was different and changed in between too. Every little thing made a big difference! There were (I think) 24 kids of which more than half were new. Some were friends of members and some came through the flyers that were distributed a few days earlier at the nearby Elementary Schools. At Kabe Chapel's KEC, there was one mom that stayed, but at Koyo Chapel, there were 5! It was so awesome that they stayed to observe, learn a bit of English, hear the Bible story, and mingle with the church members.

At the end, as the kids were leaving, we handed out plastic Easter eggs (thank you Rising Son HC at Global Harvest Church (link), Dallas!) with information inside regarding the special Children's English Easter outreach the following day, Easter Sunday.

Juhee really enjoys KEC as she already knows the English taught, the Japanese instruction is relatively easy (and a good way for her to learn more vocab), and it's a low-stress, fun environment. She gets to hang out with the Murrays' too, which is always a bonus. :)

Please pray for all of the students and moms attending KEC as well as all of the volunteers, that it will be a blessing to everyone who comes. Please pray for the Murrays as each KEC session takes a lot of planning, coordination and masses of energy! Pray that God will give them wisdom, lots of good ideas that will be well received, good communication with the volunteers, and of course, tons and tons of energy. We're very excited about this new ministry that God has given to us! :)