Change in Direction - Our Last English Class

After all the intensity of our island travels where we work directly with people, it is sometimes difficult to adjust back to our role as office support missionaries working on reports and staring at a computer much of the day from  8:00 AM to 4:30 PM.    We know the office work matters too, but it is a big switch I sometimes struggle with.

One of the things that has continued to keep us feeling excited and engaged has been our Tuesday night English class with Chinese immigrants.   Oh how we have loved those times!

However, things had changed recently. The core group of people who used to come have moved on.  Some had left the area. Others simply found other things to do.  As they develop more proficiency with the language, our advanced students no longer need to rely on our class.  So attendance had dwindled quite a bit in recent weeks.  Also, as the young missionaries from the Chinese Branch who we partner with to run this class go through transfers, different new people coming in have varying degrees of interest in keeping it going.  

Besides the change in dynamic of how the class was going, our biggest issue was the fact that our travel schedule is really ramping up.  With no reliable substitutes to fall back on when we are in the islands, it just didn't make sense to continue to juggle this class with everything else we needed to be doing. Teaching this class was never a part of our assignment.   It was something we had volunteered for as extra service.   We are very thankful for the chance we had to be involved with it for the months we have been going. But after some careful reflection and prayer about it,  we came to the decision it was time for us to move on.

Then, when we showed up this week for our very last class, we had a whole new group of students to teach.  This came after weeks of only two or three people being there.  Our last session was actually one of our best ever. It almost made us want to reconsider our decision to back out. 

 We had fun teaching them names of various body parts (eyes/ears/nose/mouth, hand, foot, arm, leg).   Then we went on to reviewing names for containers one would find in a grocery store.   We differentiated between  a Carton (eggs, milk, yogurt),   a Box (cereal, macaroni, tea, dry soups),  a Can (vegetables, soups, beans, soda or beer),  a Bottle  (juice, soda, oil, wine)  a Jar (pickles, peanut butter, jam) a Package  (noodles, or biscuits - the name here for cookies) or a Sack (flour, sugar, rice).   

 Sister Lee would draw each item on the white board as we described it.  She turned out to be a terrific artist!   Then we would have each student in the circle practice saying a sentence using the word.  "I bought a jar of _____"  or "I bought a box of _____".    If they needed help we would tell them something that would be a match for the container we were talking about in that round of the exercise.  About half of them were able to come up with their own ideas.   There was much laughter and praise throughout the exercise and a good time was had by all.  I am grateful we got to end our service with that class on a high point.

Some of the Sister Missionaries who worked with the English class for Chinese speakers:
Sister Skankey, Sister Lee, Sister Henderson, Sister Howell, Sister Yang
Sister Lee was our artist who made our last class so much fun.

We will miss the good times we had working with the English Language classes.  Even with the occasional frustrations and disappointments,  teaching these dear people from China has been a true high point of our mission experience.  

As we transition away from this weekly teaching language classes, I can't help but wonder what other opportunities for community service we might find next. We were told in the MTC that as Senior Missionaries we would have quite a bit of flexibility in how we used our time.  To a large extent, it really is up to us what sort of mission experiences we want to have.   While it IS appropriate to take some days to rest and to explore this beautiful country we are serving in, we do want to be actively engaged in doing good without having to wait for an assignment to fill all our time.  Some of that will be helping people with family history, but we look forward to finding other things to do too.

Jane emigrates to Australia

We have continued to teach our weekly English class to the Chinese students whenever we are in town.  It has been a fantastic experience.   However, I did have one very sad thing happen.

A couple weeks ago, one of my favorite students, "Jane" (on the far right in this picture), came to me with a gift - a lovely orange silk scarf.  She said to me in her somewhat halting English.  "I go to Australia.  I get this for you.  You very good teacher".  I was deeply touched by her kindness and thanked her sincerely for the present.  At the time, however, what I THOUGHT was that she had taken a trip to Australia and had felt prompted to bring me back a gift.  I had no idea she meant she was actually about to move to Australia and I would never see her again.  She was telling me goodbye, but I did not understand that at the time.

When I showed up for class this week and she was missing I was disappointed.  I always look forward to seeing her as she is a bright student and very much a joy to work with.  I asked some of the others where she was.  They said "She moved to Australia.  She's not coming back."  I was stunned.

Suddenly it dawned on me the mistake I had made.  I felt terrible that I had not properly acknowledged her leaving.  SHE got to say goodbye to me, in her own way.  But I simply didn't recognize that at the time. So I did not get to properly say my own goodbyes to her.

I will miss this sweet woman who was in many ways the bright spot of our class, always encouraging others.  This also serves as a reminder to me that we never know when we will lose the people in our lives.  I want to be sure I acknowledge the people I care about while they are with me so there will be no regrets when they are gone.

An Ah HAH! moment in the WC

It’s Tuesday evening here in New Zealand. As my oldest son says, I’m a crazy time traveler since it is still Monday back in the States.

Tuesday nights are when we go teach English classes to a group of native Chinese speakers.   We had a great time tonight.   

I am responsible for the beginning level class, helping them build basic vocabulary.  Last week we talked about opposites.   We used flash cards  laid out on the table to play “memory” with them having to find opposites for things like long/short, hot/cold, dirty/clean, open/closed, etc.

Tonight we talked about our homes, learning the words for each room and the common things found there.  I got them talking about what was similar and what was different in their homes here as compared to where they had lived in China.  (Most of my students are from Beijing).

One of the words they learned tonight was “Bathroom”.   In China, they refer to it as “WC”.  No one had ever told them what those letters stood for.   They just knew WC meant bathroom.   (Which I find odd since their language has neither a W or a C).   

As we proceeded through the lesson, when we got to the living room I was explaining that "TV" meant the same thing as “Television”.   I reminded them of our previous lesson about opposites,  saying that TV was the short name and Television was the long name for the same thing.   I introduced them to the concept of abbreviations.

Then came something so classic.   Elvis, a very sharp young man in his early 30’s, looked at me and said:  “Excuse me, I have a question.   WC is short name.  What is long name?”

I told him that WC stood for “Water Closet”.   (We had just finished talking about bedrooms so he had learned the word “closet”).      He smiled the most brilliant smile I have ever seen and exclaimed “I never knew that!  YES! Water Closet!”    The others broke out in titters as they finally understood it too.   None of them had previously heard the term “water closet”.  All were incredibly amused at how fitting that name was for the area in their home we call the bathroom.   

From there we went on to an interesting discussion on the relative merits of porcelain western toilets as compared to the squat toilets many of them knew in China.  

 Yes, all in the life of teaching English as a second language.  These are the moments we will always treasure about our mission.