I think God is calling me to play Dutch Blitz...

Over the past couple weeks I have been playing games with my students and realized what a fun way it is to connect with them.  This year I supervise study hall with high school students twice a week.  Two weeks ago, during study hall, I was invited to play UNO with them (with some Thai rules!) and it turned into a huge game with about 6-8 high school boys.  I haven't interacted with them too much before but after that game we had a connection and would laugh and talk more often.

Another day during study hall a 10th grade boy asked me if I wanted to play chess.  I had never played before so he taught me the basics and we played for the rest of class.  (I was doing pretty good when the bell rang!).

A few days after all this started I went away with the middle and high school students to Overnight Camp - three days away at a camp playing games and hanging out.  I was able to play some  more UNO, Whoonu with the Grade 9 girls, and also teach some students my favorite game, Dutch Blitz.  I first taught it to a 9th grade girl, Pin, and she loved it!  The next day I taught it to four 7th graders and they also loved it.  They ended up playing it for the next two hours!

After Overnight Camp, we were back at school and a student asked me about Dutch Blitz because he had really enjoyed playing it.  It was then (or maybe a little before then) that I got the idea to start a Dutch Blitz club in my classroom after school.  There is already a chess club, and there is cheerleading, basketball and soccer practice.  So why not Dutch Blitz?

All of this coincides with me trying to figure out where to put my focus and where to really invest my time and energy.  I really want to build relationships with my students, but with over 200 students coming through my door every week (being the art teacher to all grades) it's hard to build deep relationships... I just have a lot of shallow relationships with a lot of students.

While praying and journaling about it, God brought to mind some specific students to be investing in (mostly ones I already spend extra time with through tutoring and other avenues).  But he also brought to mind this Dutch Blitz club again.  What a great opportunity to combine wanting to get to know my students better and doing what I already love!  And what a great way for me to invite students into my classroom to just hang out and have fun once a week together -- to build friendships and pray that God uses them for deeper purposes.

It seems like a silly ministry but building friendships through fun and games is a great first step to building deeper relationships and trust.  My students aren't likely to open up to me about deeper issues without knowing me and being comfortable around me.  If nothing else, it will be a fun thing they can do after school and way for us to spend time together.  I am so excited to see where the Lord takes this!

And so, I have 6 packs of Dutch Blitz in my Amazon shopping cart and hopefully in the next month or so this will be underway!

Some pictures of my new Dutch Blitz fans at Overnight Camp :)

Teaching Pin how to play with some other teachers

Teaching four 7th graders how to play

We had four teachers who knew how to play, each paired up with a student while they first started learning, helping them get the hang of it.

They caught on really fast and were soon playing all by themselves... and pretty good, too!