Another partner

 Burger King is so comforting. It is the only thing that is like home here. The quality of the food is every bit as good as in America. When were eating in Burger King it feels like Gourmet dining.
 This has been our first week of English classes. We overbook the classes to account for attrition that we will have. Until they shrink down it's quite a bit more effort to teach. We have about 40 in each class.
This year we started an advanced class and in that class we have two writing sessions. We have given each student a small notebook. They turn in the book at the end of each class and we take them home and correct them. Luckily the level of language sophistication is within our abilities. Because both of the advanced classes have 40 people in it we have to correct 80 books two times a week.
 We were contacted this week by an organization that wants to explore having a relationship with us. They heard about us from one of our English class students that is a member of their school. It is a school for post high school students that don't have the resources to attend college. Currently there are 12 volunteer teachers. The founder and head of the school who is on left of Cheryl has a upper level government position day job. The younger person on the right of  Cherrl is the director of the school. Currently they have about about 700 students enrolled. Each course only cost $5.

They inquired about our availibility to help teach their English classes there. Right now with our own English classes started we have no availability. Maybe in the future we will staff are English classes with their students. We may be able to help them with some equipment and teaching supplies. Overall this appears to be a very good organization that we may want to partner with. Everyone is a volunteer, they have a good job placement and internship program. It seems like an effective organization. Their main emphasis is job skills and job placement which seems appropriate in a country like this that has so few employment opportunities.

The office that we met them in was very humble and had no air conditioning. Even though we're fairly acclimated to the weather we were sweating profusely. The humidity in the room was high also. I noticed that neither of them were sweating. After while they felt sorry for us and moved us into their computer room that had air conditioning.

This is one of their English classes. It is held in an out door patio area. There was a lot of Street noise in the background. The instructor is Timorese with a pretty significant accent. His teaching materials we're a whiteboard and his cell phone with a portable speaker. I can see why our English class is so popular. It is free, we have a wonderful air-conditioned classroom, we have a very good PowerPoint multimedia presentation and we are native English speakers. All this compensates for our lack of ability.

Comments

  1. The PiersFebruary 11, 2019 at 8:20 AM

    Thanks for sharing your experiences. We do not remember if you are serving an 18 or 23 month mission but in any case we hope that there will be a couple sent to serve after you are released so the great work you have been doing - especially the English classes - will be continued.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MelissaFebruary 11, 2019 at 2:25 PM

    I’m sure you are better teachers than you give yourselves credit for. Your students are lucky to have you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Trapani's in LiberiaFebruary 14, 2019 at 2:44 AM

    Brother Piers,
    We are on a 23 month Mission so we still have quite a bit of time here.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The test

Image
Our students took a midterm exam. Attendance was much greater in each class for the exam then it was for the lessons. For some reason in this culture tests are held in very high esteem. One of our classes has 3 Catholic sisters. After the test they asked to have their picture taken with us. One of the reasons the class interests them is that they will be serving in America for a period of time. Today at church we had our biggest attendance ever. On the front row is Warlito who is a member of the church from the Philippines. On the row behind is Janu our English class assistant, his fiance Zelia and her sister Santi. He's difficult to see but sitting behind Warlito is one of Dominguez's children. On the next row is Dominguez and 3 of her children. On the last row is Eden, Genevieve and Billy, they are members of the church. In the very back by the keyboard is Tara who is a member of the church and planning to serve a mission soon. Those who are not members are show
Read more

Holidays

Image
This year we had a Christmas tree. It made our lives seem a little more normal. The two little gifts under the tree are empty. Cheryl just thought we needed some wrapped gifts to make it look better. There's also a small carved manger scene. That was made on a neighboring Island in timor-leste. Last year we didn't put up the tree and it felt terrible. We called our children and my parents on their Christmas Day which was the day after Christmas for us. This Christmas felt so much better. Last Christmas we were only out for 20 days and it felt so lonely and we felt like we would be away for ever. In our church group three of the four adult members are living alone here in Timor-Leste. We had them all over for Christmas dinner. Sitting next to Cheryl is Nikki. She works for the Philippine Embassy. Across from Nikki is Eden. She has three children that are currently living in the Philippines because one of them needs special therapy. She'll be alone until they return th
Read more

Sunday in the MTC with foreign missionaries

Image
Fast and testimony meeting Today we attended a remarkable fast and testimony meeting. It was with missionaries from foreign countries who will be assigned missions in the United States. They came to the mission home already knowing how to speak English . They are in the mission home for only 3 weeks. When they bore their testimonies they did it in English and they announced the countries they were from. The countries were Paraguay, Indonesia, Philippines, Venezuela, Fiji, Brazil, Montreal Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Japan and Haiti. They were remarkable. They all appeared to be very bright and very mature in there gospel understanding and application. A lot of them were assigned to serve throughout California. One of them will be speaking Creole in Florida. One of the missionaries from the Philippines will be serving in our home mission in Sacramento.
Read more