Good Morning Campers

     Well, that's wasn't as bad as I was worried it would be. I'm not going to write a lot tonight because of how tired I am. But I first wanted to say that for a first day, it went well. I really ought to write about Sunday too. This post is growing more than I want it to at this time of night when I still need to sleep.

Us, the pastor and his family and a few of the other attendees.

      Sunday. It was an interesting experience. The "pastor" isn't a pastor yet. He is going to graduate from the seminary in Kiev in September. Until then, it's only a few believers gathering to worship, read, pray and learn. Which I guess is a church. But it felt a lot more traditional than Big City. Very similar to Holy Trinity actually. Just no offering. The pastor spoke about Communion using a catechism question. Then we sang some old hymns in Russian. Then he preached a short sermon from Psalms and the Gospel of John.

A hymnal in Russian, a New Testament and Psalms in Ukrainian and a Heidelberg Catechism in Ukrainian.

     After church, we walked around Oleksandriya to see some of the local sights. During Soviet times, this was an industrial town, mostly processing coal for the area. Not a whole lot remains of the previous industry. But there are some interesting parts of the city. Here are some pictures from the walk.

The home of the Oleksandriya city government.

A knock-off McDonald's.

"Lenin's puddle" This is where a Lenin statue previously stood near the city center.

The home of the local football team.

And open-air charismatic church service.

     And now Monday. My teaching partner Anna is a Ukrainian woman from Kharkiv who tutors people in English. We had a loss on the team Monday morning. The intern went back to Kiev. I won't go into details here. It's her choice to tell why. But we managed to make a plan Sunday evening and I think it worked out in the end.
     OK, basics. We had two groups today; morning and afternoon. Both had similar skill levels and both morning and afternoon programs were similar. All the kids were upper beginner to complete beginner. Very few could say complete, original ideas. But it fit the material we had prepared. Since they had such a low skill level, we focused on helping them to understand the Present Simple grammar rule.
     We did adjust a few things in the afternoon using the experience of the morning. I think we'll continue to do that as the week goes on. My teaching partner and I need to plan every evening what the next day's lessons will be. Toward the end of the week, that'll get easier. For Friday we only need to plan an English lesson. The kids will watch the VeggieTales Jonah movie for the cartoon and Bible lesson time.

The kids watching "Super Book" for the cartoon time.

     Alright, that's all I've got for now. I'll end it here. Maybe tomorrow if I have time, I'll write more about our general schedule and the mechanics of what we're doing. I'm heading off to bed.