We recently completed an online Teacher Training Workshop with participants from six continents! I’m so grateful to my colleagues Jean, Tanya, Prakash and Hephzi for their help in facilitating this course. Our ten new graduates plan to teach English in a variety of creative ways to to those in greatest need. I love that we can provide simple training and curriculum and watch as our new teachers reach out to help others. From teaching refugee kids in southeast Asia to tutoring Arabic speaking women in New York, they are bringing hope to.a hurting world.
Levina originally planned to teach English to the refugees who have fled to her home of Nairobi, Kenya. But as she began her online class assignments, she unexpectedly found that two native Kenyan housekeepers who live in the nearby Kibera slum were eager to learn English and study the Bible with her. This has expanded her vision of reaching out. She explains, “I have felt a need to teach ESL to low-income adult women (house workers from our slums) and street mothers who want to learn or improve their English for employment. To teach the adult women, I pray, who would come through the soup kitchen ministry, the English language.”
Novi teaches Nepali children: “I want to reach out to the children out here as some of them can’t attend school because of poverty. I would love to start with the kids in my neighborhood and also prepare myself with prayers, a few songs, and lessons.”
MaryBeth hopes to work online with disabled children and adults in South America who would like the opportunity to learn English. “This may give these individuals a skill to open career opportunities which could be helpful because individuals with disabilities face challenges securing employment.”
Another teacher who wished to be unnamed for security reasons explained, “The need is great, many are very voiceless because they can’t read or write in English which is the official language in Nigeria.” She pointed out that those who cannot read are easily cheated and exploited. She has already started an ESL ministry and teaches classes twice a week to women and out of school youth. She also intends to teach online because there are places she cannot travel due to violent insurgency. “I will be able to reach out to those as well and it is an opportunity to reach out to them with the gospel. Many in the churches in the cities can’t read, so they can’t really apply the riches and the wisdom in the scriptures to their lives to bring about transformation. I feel God is leading me in the area of literacy.”