Kids club

Something we’ve been wanting to encourage living here is more playing between our children and the Kovol children. There have been a few hurdles that have made playing together with Kovol kids hard for our own children.

There’s the language barrier of course. There’s a cultural barrier as the shared inventory of what counts as play doesn’t line up in the exact same way. The biggest challenge has been schedule though. While our children are inside working at school each weekday the Kovol kids are out in gardens helping their parents. It’s common for our children to run outside for school break to find there aren’t any Kovol kids to play with. What’s perhaps more disruptive for them is that when there are kids around they aren’t the same kids. We have a revolving door of visitors.

Then weekends roll around and again our routines are different. There are kids around at the weekends, but we spend a good chunk of our time on family activities.

The result has been a tight bond between the missionary kids on our team. Our schedules overlap and there is daily play and running around. There has not been so much playing with the Kovol kids though. That’s something we wanted to work on.

While we were back in the UK Natalie started a fortnightly kids club on Saturdays. Without our kids to play with it was even more important for them to cultivate relationships with the Kovol kids. The kids club was an attempt to develop those relationships and get play going on.

Kids club consists of one and a half hours of games on a Saturday morning, followed by sharing a large bowl of popcorn. Natalie faithfully kept kids club going while we were away and now it’s been a real joy to join in. We get to combine our youth work skills we’ve picked up with our new language skills. We’ll do duck, duck, goose this week you think, but when it comes time to do it you need to explain how the game works in the Kovol language and it can be quite a challenge! Resorting to demonstrations usually works even if our words don’t quite communicate what we intended.

We’ve been playing dodge ball, football (soccer), parachute games, relay races obstacle courses, Simon says, bulldog, tug of war, water games, hitting the target games, pictionary, musical chairs, tag games and wide games. All those years of running games at various youth groups comes back to me. Tug of war and dodge ball have been favourites.

In recent months we’ve had 20-50 kids each time. The biggest problem with that is the injury risk. When we’re playing a hectic game of tag and we see kids colliding we wince. We’ll feel responsible when an injury happens and it feels likely that it will be only a matter of time before one happens. I had the idea last week of showing them how to make a human pyramid, but the injury risk scared me off!

It’s really nice when the game works as intended, but often they devolve. Relay races commonly become a free for all as order gradually breaks down. With an excited group of children it’s somewhat inevitable, but I’ve certainly found it harder here. Standing in a line and waiting your turn is a skill that is drilled into us back in the UK, but not so much here. It takes a leader’s focussed attention to keep an ordered line. Actually it feels like it needs two leaders to keep an ordered line 🙂 We tend to adapt and go with the flow instead!

We also get to contend with the tropical weather here. Rain means trying to do it under the house. Rain finished means slippery mud, and sun means high heat. Parachute games in the tropical sun is certainly a very warm experience!

Kovol adults usually watch on. For one game I had all the kids hold hands to make a chain of 60 children. I then led the chain around weaving them around house posts, over barrels and around other obstacles. Adults were looking on shaking their heads at the silliness on display. Other times though we’ve had adults jump in to help organise the kids, and sometimes even get involved themselves. Who can resist a tug of war after all?

When the games run out Natalie brings out a large bowl of popcorn and shares it with everyone. There’s enough for a handful or two each.

Our team is currently thinking about adding a short Bible lesson along with the popcorn. I’ve finished translating the first 6 Bible lessons for the evangelistic teaching later and it has been a quick task to strip each lesson down to a simple 2 page kids lesson. The material is there to start, but our team needs to think about it. What will the adults think if we start teaching the kids before them? Will adults listening in hear the short, simple lesson and think to themselves that they have now heard the teaching and don’t need to attend the adults lessons? Will there be jealousy? Will it be an effective program for the kids if they are attending irregularly?
As always in cross cultural ministry we’re filled with questions and answers are hard to find. It’s easy to be overly cautious. We don’t want to shake the boat too much by blundering into things doing it our way, but at the same time we need to start at some point. Our team is currently weighing that all up. It’s exciting nonetheless that there are lessons ready. We could start next week, and we could keep up producing new material with the kids club only being once every two weeks.

What of the initial goal of kids club? Do we see more playing between our children and the Kovol children? Yes we do. It’s a delight to run the games and see our kids as just part of a large crowd. Outside of kids club we see a bit more comfort with the Kovol kids and playing together also. I’m very glad Natalie started. This coming Saturday is the next one. I’m looking forward to it on the one hand, but on the other hand I’m lazy and prefer lounging around on Saturday mornings. Overall though I’m really looking forward to it. My repertoire of games is running low, but I’m sure I can think of something.