January 11, 2005

Dear Friends,

One thing that I am sure has been echoed by many teachers over the years is how demanding their chosen profession can be. Working as an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher in China has certainly proved to be demanding for me. There are students who need extra help because what you are asking them to do is slightly above their English level, students who have a higher English level than their peers and get bored with the pace of class, students who are so petrified of making mistakes that getting them to say a three-word sentence can be your goal every class period, students who are frustrated with the pace of their improvement and thus give up trying, and students who just want to talk to their foreign teacher but aren’t sure how to express what they want in English.

Where there are so many legitimate demands on a person, the necessity of the Holy Spirit becomes even more evident, at least it did to me. It was not an option to ask God for more patience, more strength, more guidance, more joy, and more grace, it was mandatory. I was a first-semester teacher in a strange culture. I had had only one month’s experience in teaching—Spanish to elementary school students. I have served four full summers as a camp counselor and lifeguard, but to American children. What do I do with 239 Chinese college students for a full four-and-a-half months?

I prayed. I asked for ideas from the other Amity teachers in Lanzhou. I prayed some more. I went through my ESL/EFL training materials for ideas. Most of all, I worked my socks off. My mother will tell you I didn’t call home often enough, and I’ve gotten emails several times asking where I was, why she hadn’t heard from me in a week, etc. (sometimes it was because I hadn’t been to the Internet bar in a week). Yet in spite of being convinced in my head that my hard work would eventually pay off, I still had doubts in my heart as to whether all of my work was truly making a difference in the lives of my students. Was all of my extra effort worth it? Sure, my students’ oral English was improving a little bit at a time, but could they sense how much I cared about them as individuals, and how much I was pouring myself into creating educational and fun lessons for them?

During the semester, I received encouragement in many different ways: students telling me that they liked my lessons because they could relax, learn, and have fun; going mountain-climbing with Kendra and a posse of our students; visiting some of my girl students in their dormitories; getting phone calls all day on Teacher’s Day. When I taught my students about Christmas, however, was when their feelings became more obviously expressed. Many already knew that Christmas is the biggest commerical holiday in America and that gift-giving is a Christmas tradition, so they decided that they would give me gifts.

My students gave me one of the best Christmas seasons I have ever had. Since I had expected nothing from them, every gift was a wonderful surprise. Esther and Charity, girls in class “B,” bought me a big zhong guo jie (a big, red, diamond-shaped knot, used to symbolize good luck) and my entire “C” class chipped in to buy me an even bigger zhong guo jie. One of the girls in “C” gave me a Santa head ornament, and the “B” class bought me a huge stuffed dog. My “A” class hijacked my lesson plan for the Friday before Christmas by throwing a Christmas party for me. They wrote “Merry Christmas!” and “Best Wishes for you!” and “Thank you for teaching us!” on the board, made a Christmas “poster” out of black wrapping paper that they had all signed, decorated their room with Christmas chains made of green and red card stock, and gave me two gifts: a box of incense and a clear vase with two yellow tulips floating in liquid inside.

Keeping in mind how poor many of my students are makes their gifts to me even more precious. My work did not go unnoticed, it was appreciated. As a Christian, I know that there will be times when I am required to walk by faith and not by sight, when I will not see the results of my labor, yet God does still work through us, even in times when He does not seem like He is. I have been extraordinarily blessed by my work with my students this semester, and I am looking forward to another semester of teaching. I am praying that God will continue to bless me in my work here, and that I may continue to learn to trust Him with the demands of my day-to-day teaching, for the rewards are great. May all of you see God’s hand working through you and in your students.

Rae

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 246