A New Week

Nancy's back from Argentina, and is full of stories! She had a great time visiting her cousins there and has enough stories to keep us entertained for days! We're thankful that she was able to take advantage of the long holiday weekend last week and that she is now back safe and sound.

Jason let me participate in his classes today! His students were thrilled to have him back in class, but he kindly let me have some time, too, since my days here at Adonai are numbered. My sister-in-law, who has lived and taught in so many countries herself, told me that since I know the language, I am able to form more relationships than she was able to when she was teaching overseas. I thought about that a lot today, and she is right! I stumble and struggle with communicating at times, but I do know enough to have simple conversations, and my new friends and many of the students want to help me learn and speak their language, so they are more than helpful in leading me through the words and sentences I'm trying to use.

In the sixth grade classes today, Jason and I did a little dialogue from their book to help the students with some listening and comprehension skills. When we were finished reading, he asked them if they understood what we were reading and NO ONE DID!!! The blank stares were almost comical! They listened to every word, but they didn't understand. (Hmmm. I see a spiritual application here! How many times do we listen to every word that is spoken from church, Bible Studies, one-on-one interaction, etc, and yet we don't pay attention or even try to understand what is spoken?!) When Jason went through it phrase by phrase, you could see understanding come to their faces, and excitement when they could actually tell him what words they understood. I do love that sixth grade class, even if they did lose all their smile face incentives today and had to have homework! They're wonderful kids and I'm glad that Jason let me teach a wee bit more today! Thanks, Jason!