Murmurs murmur through the Wichern church in Moisling. Pastor Christian Gauer walks around the church’s altar, which is softly lit by an opening in the ceiling. Gauer lights candle after candle on the altar, while 40 children sit on benches and tell exciting stories. “Do you know why our Advent wreath has so many candles?” asks Christian Gauer. “There was once a pastor whose name was Johann Hinrich Wichern. He invented the Advent wreath for poor street children to shorten the time until Christmas. The wreath has four large white candles for the Sundays in Advent and 19 small red candles for the other days. The children were able to see how many days had to pass until Christmas Eve and also learned to count!” explains Pastor Christian Gauer. “Tomorrow dear children, let’s light the third white candle. How many Advents is that then?” asks Gauer. “The third one!” the children shout at him.
The Christmas Expedition junior campus TH Lübeck continues with a short story for the day-care and elementary school children. Karena Landes – wrapped up in a red, brightly colored Christmas jumper – tells the story of a snowflake who wanted to go on strike. “I can’t take it anymore, I’m tired – said a flake one day. I fall to the ground again and again and never had time to rest.”
Even the forty children have little time to rest. Next stop of their Christmas expedition: an experimental workshop in the community center in Moisling next to the church in Wichern. In keeping with the Advent season, they are learning today what light is all about. “Do you know what color the light is?” asks Jochem Bohnet from the JuniorCampus at Lübeck University of Applied Sciences. “White” – some children call out to him. “Light appears to us as white, actually light consists of the many colors of the rainbow! Your first task now is to take the red, green, and blue flashlights in front of you and see what happens when you mix the beams of light.”
Soon the room will be lit up in the most fantastic colors. Pink, turquoise, yellow – everything is included. For the second task, the children are given different-shaped glass prisms in their hands. Now they shine their flashlights through the prisms and are amazed at how the light beams are deflected. They quickly found out that they could build entire towers out of the prisms. “Now we want to make special Christmas tree glasses with you,” says Jochem Bohnet. With the active support of the educators and the JuniorCampus team, the children cut out Christmas trees from green cardboard with extra holes for the eyes. “When you’re done with the eyes, you get a ‘ah stick’ like from the doctor, which you stick to the tree as a stick, and the special glasses,” explains Bohnet. Each child cuts and crafts at their own pace – but some finish quicker and throw themselves into lots of different experiments that the Business Academy (FAW) has brought. Soon the children are flocking to the exhibits and there is rattling and tooting while the FAW team explains the hands-on phenomena.
When all the children have finished with their glasses, the JuniorCampus employees turn off the light. On command, they snap on two Christmas stars and a loud “Wooooow” fills the room. The special glasses break the light of the stars into many colorful smaller rays of light and make the children enthusiastic.
Equipped with their special glasses and a large portion of energy, the 40 children meet again in the Wichern church at the end of the Christmas expedition. Once there, Thorsten Klöpper, the President of the Rotary Club Luebeck, with a gift. All children are called up one by one and receive an honorary researcher medal from the JuniorCampus and a red backpack filled with kaleidoscopes, airships, magnifying glasses and candy from the Rotary Club. With so many special gifts, the parents of the children will probably have to work a little harder for the upcoming holidays.