The Fun Has Finally Begun!

This past week, we started back to teaching English & I must say, it feels really good to be back in the classroom. I didn't realize how much I enjoy it until we started back on Wednesday. I love that in the village I already know the students & have the ability to just dive right in to broadening their English. I love those kids! As we pulled up to the school, the kids were lined up outside, ready to go back inside. Some of them saw us pull up & we could see the excitement as they turned to each other & pointed at us with big smiles on their faces. What a great welcoming! The kids had lots to ask & say to me since this was the first I've seen them since the end of last school-year. They knew Eric & I had gotten married & were excited to have Eric come to help teach them music. They were also excited to meet Josh. They need male role-models and Eric & Josh are great ones to be a part of their lives.

Our first day back to teaching in the Adult English classes was also refreshing. The program we're teaching with has had to make some adjustments this time around &- at least for this current session- is only taking in returning students rather than opening up the classes to new students, causing the number of students in each class to be much lower than the previous times that I've taught with them. The classes are divided into several different levels. Eric & I have the privilege of co-teaching level 3 students. We had only 3 students for the first class, but we may have more joining us in the coming week. Josh is co-teaching level 4 (I think) with a nice German young lady. Last year, I started out teaching level 1 students with Doug & grew absolutely frustrated with the whole ordeal! It was so difficult to make any progress with such minimal knowledge of English on their part & zero-knowledge of Arabic on our part. I had begun to think I wasn't cut out for teaching English. But, the next time around, I was given level 3 & found my niche. I love level 3! They know just enough English to understand most of what we tell them. Their weakness is actually speaking the language. So, that's our focus & it's fun coming up with ways to make them use complete, grammatically correct sentences. In each lesson, we have a grammar focus & then concentrate the conversation for that day on getting them to speak and correcting their sentences according to the grammar focus.

I came up with an activity for our class that we used on Wednesday. I gave each of the students an index card with 2 words on it. The object of the activity was for the students to describe their word to the rest of us without saying the word itself. I thought it might be too easy or maybe even silly for them, but it turned out to be a really great activity. One of the guys was describing his word & he was telling different characteristics such as: You can find this animal in a zoo. It's a meat-eater. It runs really fast. With these clues, Eric asked if it was in the cat family & the guy said yes, it's in the cat family. At that point I had to interrupt him & correct him because I knew there was only one animal in the group of words & these descriptions sounded really sketchy for a DOG! haha! I told him that the animal was NOT in the cat family. Somebody asked him if someone would have the animal in their house & he said, "Yeah, if they want to." So, with that last clue, it was guessed that the animal was indeed a dog. Now, you've gotta understand, Arabs don't think of dogs the way we in America do. The common thought is that dogs are dirty & nasty & some are even scared of them. So, the descriptions this guy was giving were quite humorous! So, overall, the week was quite fulfilling knowing that we're getting in a groove of teaching & building relationships in the process.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. More specifically, please pray for:

1. The relationships we have- that God would be at the center of those relationships

2. Our finances- that God would continue to provide as He has always been so faithful to do

Thank you all for your prayers & support! We love you & are so thankful God has connected us with you! God bless!