Flying Solo...

First thing I want to say is--I applaud anyone and everyone who has ever been a teacher of some sort. Who has had to get up in front of people all by themselves and teach a group of people something.

So you know how Jess and I are apparently moving to the other hotel? Well, Tere wanted us to go over and help clean the hotel up before we move in. Only probably is, that she asked us this at 4:20. We have class Wednesday nights at 5 at Shalom for youth and adults. We had a few minutes we could help, but we also had to make some photo copies for the class.

So Jess said that we should split up and volunteered to go with Tere. She said that as soon as she got back, she would come help me.

So at 4:30, I left the hotel and walked over to the photocopy place and made copies for the lesson and than went to the church for our class. I got there, but there was no one there so I called Fany. Apparently the pastor and a group of people had gone to a farm or something, so she didn't know for sure if we would have class. But, people started showing up, and someone finally showed up that had a key and opened the door for me.

I went in and got things settled and wrote the alphabet on the board, the entire time confident that Jessica would show up soon. More and more people came, and eventually I had a class of 15 (quince) people in the room. None of whom spoke a lick of English. I began with the Alphabet. Some of them knew it and others had never learned it before. From the alphabet, I went to numbers, and then days of the week, months of the year, family members and then some short phrases such as How are you? How old are you? stuff like that. At the end of class we went around and practice asking questions. Class lasted an hour and Jessica never came--she is still stuck cleaning at the moment.

So I taught the class all by myself. Which, in English this wouldn't have phased me one bit...but trying to teach a class on English to Spanish speakers is a bit more than I've ever tried--granted we've had classes before here yes, but it's different when you are by yourself and there are so many students. It was intimidating.

At the end of the class though, one boy, Omar (who apparently is good friends with the people from Shelby--He says hello to Joey--he introduced himself as a good friend yours Joey!) came up and thanked me for coming and teaching them English.

It was a good experience but I was incredibly nervous. I sweated the entire time. I'm sure you wanted to know that. Ha!

Hope all is well with you guys, and pray that confusion and chaos settles down around here.