Teaching English

Our church here has a program called Panes Kids at two of the daughter churches, Año Nuevo and Km.22. Panes Kids is an afterschool program that includes a big lunch and a lesson. Children in Peru usually eat their big meal when they get home from school around 1:00 or 2:00 pm. In families where the Mom has to be working all day and they can't afford to pay someone to watch the kids (or cook), getting this big meal in gets complicated, thus why Panes Kids is a huge help to the families whose children attend. I started volunteering two days a week at the Año Nuevo Panes Kids about three weeks ago. We have about 40 kids ages 5-13. Recently I started teaching them English. Even though we didn't come here with any plan to teach English to anyone, it's exciting to be able to teach something that is SO in demand in Peru to kids who otherwise lack the resources to get this kind of education. Speaking English in this country is an enormous asset that automatically increases opportunties for well-paying work. I love that these precious kids are getting it for free.

Today, I was teaching a group of 5-7 years old that I hadn't taught before. I started the class by asking them if they knew any words in English. One said "Hello!", another, "Thank You", and another shouted, "GRINGO!". Good guess, but no. Ha!

I then proceded to ask them what countries are English-speaking. One immediately said the U.S. When I asked for more countries, I got Chile, El Salvador, Spain, and finally, when I had said no to all of those, a kid answered confidently, "Mexico!" They all got quiet as they waited to hear my answer, as if they agreed that was a good guess. At that point I decided it was time to move on.

Today we learned how to say "Hi", "Hello", "What is your name?", "My name is ____", and how to count to 10. They learned even faster that the 8-11 year olds. Some barely even know how to write and read in Spanish, so they weren't asking why things were the way they were or how Spanish and English are different, they were just listening and repeating. I was so proud of them. But there's a difference between listening and repeating (even if perfectly) and understanding. When we were saying goodbye, a few of them (not just one!) excitedly waved to me and said "Hello!" as they ran out the door. I didn't have the heart to correct them. We'll have to save that for another day.

A Savings Group with some of the moms of Panes Kids. This is also our classroom.

From Tennessee with Love

I started this post back in December while we were in the D.R. I guess it's finally time to finish it. :) Sorry that this is super old news to some of you, but it's not to everyone!

Almost five months ago now we "met" (over Skype) four people from the ministry The Locker Room and the church Fellowship Bible Church in Nashville, TN that are donating a substantial portion of our financial support (most, or all, of them go to Fellowship Bible Church, but the financial support is coming from The Locker Room, not the church).

The story is better from the beginning, so I'm gonna start there. When Steve was interviewing with HOPE last September, during his interview with his current boss, Andy, we found out that there was a ministry/church in TN that would be supplying almost half of the financial support for the fellowship. Andy and Steve discussed this as Andy tried to give Steve a picture of what kind of fundraising would be necessary as part of this position. After the call, as we talked about the position and the church in Comas that we would be closely partnered with, we decided that we really should know more about this church in Comas before deciding this is something we want to do. There are some crazy churches out there, right? Just because it is a church, it does not mean I want to align my life with them, unfortunately.

Thankfully, my husband has intense internet researching skills and can find things in two minutes that I wouldn't find in an hour. We set out to find the church Andy had mentioned (without the name or denomination) and within a few minutes Steve had a church in TN pulled up on his computer that has a relationship with a Christian Missionary Alliance Church in Comas, Peru. There was a picture of the head pastor on the website. His name is Michael Easley.

That name probably means nothing to most of you, but Michael Easley was the head pastor of the church I grew up going to in Virginia. He moved away and left our church when I was in college ended up at a church in TN a few years later. Steve didn't tell his interviewers this in follow-up calls since our connection with this church should have nothing to do with him getting the position with HOPE (and it wouldn't have anyway). It was a confirmation to us, though. We thought, "Here we are trying to connect with this organization, at which we know no one, and this church in Peru, at which we know no one, and we find out that a man that I have always highly respected is the lead pastor of the church in TN that we will be partnering with."

We've had only four or so conversations over Skype and a few emails exchanged, but have felt tremendous care and support from them. I say, "From Tennessee with Love" because that is what we've felt from each conversation -love, encouragement, support, and prayer. I know they're praying for us. People that we've never even met. What a blessing! While we've yet to meet in person, I am confident it will be a sweet time when we finally do.

Our church in Comas - the church welcoming the women back from a retreat I went on a few weeks ago. We all ran through a tunnel like a sports team, went up on stage, and sang and danced. These people know how to celebrate!