Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Good for a smile

So I showed you the picture of my class when they graduated, but I didn't tell you some of the funny things that happened along the way. In my class I taught 10 different American idioms every week, but sometimes the meaning didn't quite come across right. For example, here are a few gems from the homework: "I really like Jesus Christ, I think I'm falling in love with him." also "I am really tired because I've been looking like a dog all day." (supposed to be working like a dog). Just last week someone wrote: "Sometimes it's hard to break the ice cream." (a little different than break the ice)

Sometimes however, I think they understand the idioms very well. For example: "If you have two girlfriends you will always be in the dog house."

I also taught them the difference between active and passive sentences – "Emily ate the cake." and "The cake was eaten by Emily." So, I laughed really hard when I read: "Many Guineans were baked in ovens for people to eat at Christmas." At least I think that was a mistake...

I still really like teaching a lot. The other English teachers are doing a great job too. This semester we started a new night school program and we are doing some new things with conversation classes. I also started up the Sunday evening English service again and I am organizing that too. Most of the time I'm going to be the one preaching in the service, so that will be a new thing for me. It has all been a lot of work but I think it's going well.

The third week in February we are going to have a break so Jason and I will be doing a little traveling. We are going to go to Gabu to see the schools that Youth with a Mission has started there and then we are going to stay with some friends of ours, Basilio and Gisa, in Gabu for a few days. They are missionaries from Brazil. Basilio is a pastor so we are going to see what the church is doing out there.

After that we are headed to Sinchã Botchi for a few days. I am going to take beads and have some jewelry making classes for women as a way to talk to them about God and teach them a new skill. Then it's back to the salt mines.

As most of you know we have internet at the Youth Center now. It's not fast, but I get your emails right when you send them (during the hours that we have power) and sometimes I am sitting at my computer and can even email you right back. Skype works but only if no one else is doing anything online. So anyway, feel free to email me or even post a comment because I will get it way sooner than before .

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