English Camp 2009

Well, it's been a week since we all went to the English Camp. It was a lot of fun, hard work, but fun.
We first arrived at the English Camp a little after 9am and had a quick meeting with the other 3 families that were there. We just mainly discussed how we were going to run the camp and what to do with the kids who came. We weren't going to have any specific English "classes" the kids were just not aloud to speak in Japanese for the two days.
When the kid first started arriving, I will admit, I was really nervous as to how I would communicate with some of the ones who didn't speak very good English. But everything went really well. We all played games, made up chants for our teams, made up special handshakes, ate some really great food, went swimming, painted rocks and coffee cups, and just had a great time.
It was a really busy schedule, but everything just flowed. We played "Go Fish" with the girls that roomed with us during our free time. They loved it! Monday night we had a big bonfire and a mini-fireworks show. The whole camp was very well done.
Christine was in a group with some of the young mothers and their kids, and she was able to have some really great conversations with them. One of the mothers said she would like to come to the Fuse sometime.
After all the kids went home, Debbie, Tim, Christine, and I all went our to Andy's house. (Andy was one of the leaders who put on the camp) We all just spent the evening eating dinner and relaxing. It was so nice to talk with Andy, his wife (Mami), Kenji (another leader), and his wife (Nozomi). It was encouraging as well. They gave us ideas for the Fuse and offered to help if they could.