| Dear Friends,
Wow, I cannot believe that our team is down to our last week in Hong Kong.
We spent this past week helping the Kowloon Central Corps with their day camp. The children that attended this day camp were not children from the corps. The corps put up posters and advertisements about the day camp and parents signed their children up.
The purpose of the day camp was to help the children with their English, to teach them about junior soldiers, and most importantly to teach them about Jesus.
Our role in the day camp was to teach an English song in the morning and to teach the vocabulary words each day. At first it seemed odd to us to have such a small role because we have been completely in charge of our day camps the past weeks, but it was really great because the rest of the time we got to just hang out with the children and get to know them.
Each day there was a theme for the day and there were even several outings throughout the week.
On Monday the kids were introduced to the camp and the them was Hong Kong in Your Eyes. In the afternoon the children made models of popular Hong Kong attractions to place on a large map of Hong Kong.
On Tuesday the children learned about the rich and poor. In the morning we played a game where the children performed tasks to earn money, then they had to pay for their snacks and lunch. There was even a “rich” lunch and a “poor” lunch depending on how much money the children earned. Then in the afternoon we went to a senior center and asked an elderly person to help us buy some food for $10HK (about $1.50 US).
On Wednesday the children learned about meaningful eating. We went on a field trip to a tofu pudding factory, had lunch at a Korean buffet, and then visited a mooncake/wifecake factory. Mooncake and Wifecake are chinese desserts, I will post some pictures because I am not sure how to describe them.
On Thursday we went on a field trip to Lamma Island. We went to a fisherman’s village in the morning and then on a hike in the afternoon.
On Friday we went to different places through the area and the children had to perform a task. For example, we went to the ferry pier and the children had to pick up some rubbish(trash).
Friday afternoon the children were invited to give their lives to Christ and we had about 20 kids who gave their lives to Christ.
On Saturday the children learned about the junior soldiers program. There were many children who expressed interest in joining junior soldiers.
On Sunday the children sang the camp song and Jesus Loves Me during the service and then we had lunch with the children and parents. It was sad saying goodbye to the children, because we really got to know them during the week.
The most difficult thing this week was the language. Everything was in Cantonese and we did not always have a translator. This was more difficult in the beginning but towards the end of the week we got used to not know completely what was going on. This helped us to get to know the children better as well because we were always asking then what is going on.
This week I learned to write my name in Chinese. I wish I could show, but it will have to be the next time I see you because well I learned how to write it, not type it.
Thank you for your prayers and support,
Tracy |
