A lot has been going on, so I decided to give you three updates in one! My schedule will look similar to this for the next couple of weeks, although I'm sure each will have its own fun stories!
Teaching Tica
Every Monday and Wednesday from eleven o'clock until noon you'll find me teaching the Shauls' oldest daughter, affectionately known as Tica. Since the Shauls will be spending most of the upcoming school year in Omaha, Nebraska, I am preparing Tica for Kindergarten in the States. This is a fun time for me because it allows me to put into practice skills and strategies I just acquired this past school year while teaching Kindergartners. I love God's timing in all of this! Tica is eagerly learning her letter names and sounds, sight words, and reading short books for the first time! It's easy to teach this hard-working student! Check out her smile under Browse Photos.
Classes in the Campo
Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are a time for the people of Mogollon to learn English. My classes have attracted a total of 30 adults and children on average which is a huge turnout! I continue to be amazed at the desire my friends have to learn a foreign language, many of whom have never studied it before! I wish I could bottle up some of their enthusiasm and sprinkle it over my students in the States! They are very content to just copy vocabulary terms and grammar from the small white board I was graciously given a day before me trip. I have planned games which sometimes have gone according to plan and sometimes have been an utter failure. For example, the hot potato game we played to learn the "5 W's (who, where, what, when, how) went splendidly! The adults as well as the children scrambled to get the ball out of their hands before the music stopped so they didn't have to decipher what each each word meant! It was fun for all! However, on Tuesday when it was time to follow directions carefully written on color-coded cards so that everybody would visit and learn the vocabulary words around the church, miscommunication set in. I saw true competitiveness come out, especially from Pastor Rigoberto's wife who could definitely be successful on a roller derby team! Everyone made a mad dash for the cards, ripped them off their designated item and ran around trying to match it with another card. C-h-a-o-s. Not my finest moment in teaching, but it was pretty funny watching everybody run around! Sometimes you just have to take it as it comes. We'll be hitting the note taking again today and continue to practice our conversation.
Amance Amigos
When I'm not in the village or with Tica teaching English, I catch up with 3 of my Amance, or Dominican Rising, friends. Mayi (Ma-gee), who is fluent in English, and I were walking some mornings at 6AM to practice. After two days, which felt like 2 weeks, we decided to find a better time of day that was more agreeable to our schedules! She is a welcome relief to much of my Spanish speaking, and we're both learning from each other. Horlyn (OR-lean) is working on becoming a translator. He speaks pretty well, yet I have been able to help him with mathematical terms so that he can sell Amance t-shirts more effectively and translating updates from Dominican churches to American churches.
Perhaps most challenging has been teaching Laritza. Laritza is in a free English immersion class offered at the local university which means for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week for 9 months, she's sitting in a classroom learning English in English. Wow! Intense! She's asked me things like, "What are modal verbs?" (No, that's not a spelling error.) Umm, I didn't even know they existed in English, did you? (English teachers need not answer.) Or, "I need to work on past perfect and past perfect progressive." Ok, let me consult your textbook so that I can explain my language in your language! It's been interesting, but I have been able to brush up on my Spanish grammar as well.
Perhaps what is most rewarding is that usually Laritza and I just stop and talk in between the sips of Sprite, bites of cookies, and heads spinning with grammar. It was one such moment that I learned Laritza used to be the director for Compassion International here in San Juan. In fact, she worked for them for seven years up until this past May when she felt God lead to be a full-time student with Dominican Rising. This means she left a very secure job to be a full-time missionary. Wow. I don't hear about faith like that everyday. Especially when she is caring for her ailing mother at the same time. She told me this through tears, and mine matched hers. She's at that point right now that she's not entirely sure why God called her to this or what that means for her future. Yet she is following Him, the One who has sustained her all along. She said taking English was not even her idea, it was His.
Please offer a prayer of thanksgiving for my dear sister's obedience to God the Father, and pray for His continued direction in her life.
