March 20. 2006

The expanded ESL mission is half way through its first semester and hereπs where we are.

Over 110 people have come more than one time.

So far our students come from 14 countries: Albania, China, Haiti, Korea, India, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan. They speak 8 languages: Albanian, Chinese Mandarin, Haitian Creole, Hangul (Korean), Hindi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Urdu.

While our volunteers have a variety of regional American accents, some say that Jerry Christianaπs accent may qualify as another foreign language.

Some of our volunteers have attended almost all of the 43 sessions. That's between 36 and 54 service per month, not counting preparation times. Many of our volunteers put in a full day of work, before coming to the evening classes. One volunteer from another church, a teacher at Bennett Middle School, often comes in feeling exhausted, but says that she is exhilarated after teaching our Thursday night advanced class.

Since the expanded ESL began on January 2, we have had 43 sessions with a total of 61 classes for beginners, advanced speakers and Sunday school, and 2 faculty prayer meetings. At either the beginning or end of each class we have led the students in prayer in Jesusπ name. For some of the classes students have sung gospel oriented songs such as "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", "Them bones,"Kum Ba Ya", and "For the Beauty of the Earth.

Pastors Kim and Rodriguez along with their wives have been present at many classes. Mrs. Kim attends most every session. They were able to form relationships with many of the students. Since we are missionaries first, relationships come first.

Education comes second, a close second. Our teaching is good. Many of our volunteers are experienced certified ESL teachers and/or classroom teachers. But one of our most versatile teachers has no direct teacher training. Teachers have had to be flexible when attendance numbers are never guaranteed and newcomers register every week.

Topics we have covered in the past two months have been:

ÿ personal information such as name, address and birthday

ÿ months of the year

ÿ ordinal numbers

ÿ family relationships

ÿ personal descriptors

ÿ anatomy

ÿ food. (We'll be having potlucks before you know it.)

ÿ money

ÿ pronouns and verbs

Many of our students are working hard and attend faithfully. Many of us have formed friendships with non-Christians that would have been impossible without this mission opportunity.