Marysville First UMC OHIO

About a year ago, I got an email from a church in Ohio asking if I could Skype with their youth during Sunday school. It was a busy Sunday, but I roped one of our High School students into joining me for a chat with their students.  They asked Vitya questions and I translated both ways, and we all laughed a lot.  The students asked great questions.  It was a lot of fun, and they asked how they could help.  

They sent Christmas gifts for our leadership team - beautiful clothes and jewelry for the leadership girls and DVDs and other great gifts for new students.  They also included a gingerbread house kit in a box.  The box arrived a little bit after Christmas (it got stuck at the border, which is common!) so we decided to make the ginger bread house at a later date.  Someone (not me!) had the bright idea of checking the "best by" date and we found that it would soon expire - so we planned a Christmas in October English Club.  I mean, Christmas decorations are already out at stores in the states - so we're not that early.  

 

Erica Oliveira leading a small group discussion.

We were precisely 77 days away from Christmas when we compared and contrasted Christmas traditions, ate Christmas food, listened to a Christmas story, talked about the ideals of perfection, and built the magical ginger bread house. 

Almost finished.

English Club students gather around the finished ginger bread house.

It was a fun activity for all of the students, but the children of our adult students liked it best.  It was a good activity to bring together all the ages that our open and free English Club brings in.

Fiercely proud of their creation

And then we ate it.  Now, I've only made a ginger bread house once and that was straight out of the oven and I don't think we even finished building it.  This one was pretty tasty for a box kit sent last Christmas.

Hopefully edible

Thank you, Marysville First UMC in Ohio for making our October Christmas festivities a real hit!