gifts of grace

We had a good week of living and teaching together before Krista left for Guizhou. The university students studied the letters ‘F’ and ‘V,’ and we talked about never giving up… keep trying! We talked about four ways to keep going: 1) Be thankful for the things we have; 2) smile often – smiles make more smiles; 3) encourage others – tell your friends “you are important, You are valuable, and you are loved!” (God loves us all!); and 4) work hard and keep putting one step in front of the other.  It doesn’t matter how slow, just that we keep looking ahead. Most of our students believe their oral English is very poor and they have no confidence. So it will be a fun term of helping them learn to open their mouth and realize their abilities. PTL for His love in our life. We are thankful for many things.

For the past 10 days, Krista was training middle school and primary school teachers for ESEC’s Teacher Certification program in Panxian, Guizhou – which also goes by its new city name, Red Fruit (Hong Gua). We don’t know why. She worked in the classroom from 8 to 6 each day and spent most evenings preparing for the next day. We are thankful that it was a successful and productive training. The teachers, 120 of them, studied TIP Teacher Attributes 2 to 8 (Attitude, Student Interest and Student Centered Learning, etc) while 12 “trainers” learned how to evaluate the teachers on all 16 Attributes. It was an intense exchange of information and the teachers and “trainers” were enthusiastic learners. They all realized that their classes are so teacher centered and are interested, albeit challenged, in bringing the new “student-centered” ideas to their classroom. We’ll be back in May to find out how the classroom practice is going! Krista also trained an ESEC colleague how to coordinate the program for future activities. The weather was mild and a little rainy. Krista got to go to several parks in Kunming, Yunnan, on the way there with Sarah, our Chinese staff colleague. God is good!

Pres was happy in Mudanjiang with his students and colleagues. The new washing machine arrived, and he was able to do several loads a day, despite the low water pressure. Pres developed his lessons and the students also enjoyed studying proverbs and sayings and coming up with actions to go with them. They all love the phonics videos that our friend Cathy in Korea recommended. All over the country they will be learning by the “Having Fun with English” Phonics videos. The students continue to write their 10 new words each week and their English diaries, which is useful, as the power often goes off in the classroom and we have to resort to using the blackboard and homework for learning lessons. But is it is all working well! We pray that Pres can have creative ideas to help the students build their confidence and learn more and more! Pls also pray that his visa will be processed soon.

 

Pres also was treated to a Saturday outing by the English department’s dean, Swallow. It was a Chinese holiday, so Swallow took him and Linda, our English department’s secretary, to lunch and then the river. It was a good time to share and learn together as our dean is completing her Ph.D. in Shanghai and will be gone most of the term.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, and we are looking forward to celebrating Resurrection Sunday. We are thankful for God’s gracious gift of His Son, who was betrayed and killed as part of God’s plan to save us! No suffering is too great to honor this gift.

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