The week of the 10th through the 14th was a bit busier than normal at Acorn Center. A group of wonderful young moms (and a couple of dads) from Northwest Hills Church had contacted me months ago about doing a Vacation Bible school for neighborhood kids. They decided to open it up to very young children and so the group ranged from age 2-5 and the kids were very active and fun. Briza, Bryan and Julian, children of students in our English classes who live nearby, came to VBS every day and heard Bible stories for the very first time.We hope this will be an annual event, although judging from the excellent lessons, crafts, games and snacks, it was a lot of work for the volunteers. I loved having the kid energy happening around Acorn again. We've missed that as we have moved to working more with adults. We're certainly open to having children's programs again, but we need more energetic young volunteers like this team from Northwest Hills.
Our adult classes have continued seamlessly all summer long, in spite of vacationing teachers. In an earlier post I wrote about needing more volunteers and I am happy to say that I have 3 new people who have started in the last few weeks. There is still room for more helpers, since my most long-term teacher, Karen Berg, just left for a year in Uganda (hopefully she'll be teaching some English there to keep in practice), and another long-termer, Sara Phillips, will be having her first child this fall and will need some time off. She wants to continue at Acorn though, so maybe I'll volunteer to take care of her baby while she teaches!
Our student numbers have been down a bit this summer since lots of people are working long hours while there is work to be had. But we have had students of every ability level coming to class, and we have been trying to offer 3-4 levels of English as well as computer instruction at all of our class times. I anticipate the attendance will increase as the weather gets worse.
