Okay, that’s not entirely true. We have just completed teaching our first English class. But we don’t know how many more will be taught. The 311 figure is just a rough estimate based on our schedule of teaching 3 times weekly (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) over the course of two years. We may be here longer, who knows. And I’m sure we’ll have some days off thrown in there too. Not just for our sake, but for the sake of the students as well and, of course, for holidays and the like.
But having one under our belt is a good feeling. We’re starting slow and focusing on pronunciation here in the beginning. It’s slow but foundational and will help down the road. So for now we are beginning with single letter sounds and accompanying vocabulary. Prayer is a part of every class and we are beginning each class period with a Bible verse read in English and in Lingala. Over the course of the week, the passage is then divided into phrases and the vocabulary in it is explained, translated and defined.
There are 10 people in our class. Five are members of the Hospitality Team that we are training to welcome work/teaching teams from the US. The other five are people within CECU whose ministry leadership feels would greatly benefit from English training. This includes Director Mowa, one of the teachers here at Elikya (Mama Susa) and others that will be introduced later. They are a great group of people that we are privileged to have in our class and to work with.
Keep these English classes in your prayers. As you would expect, it is rather difficult teaching in a language that you do not yet have fluency in. It is a challenge and yet also one more great opportunity for us to get better at Lingala. This is one class where absolutely everybody is learning, students and teachers alike.
