The third class at this intensive is about money. Students have been learning about needs vs. wants, saving money, and budgeting and how their choices in these areas can affect their lives. In this class the students are working on a brochure highlighting their own personal perspectives on how money impacts their lives. This is their final project that they will present on Friday, along with two other presentations from the other classes.

The second week of our intensive begins tomorrow (Monday) at 9:30 am. Each day we give our students new words in the form of tongue twisters (to work on pronunciation), idioms (to help with understanding English speakers), and synonyms (to expand their vocabulary while speaking or writing). During this week the students will be working on their final projects for each class, using the information and new vocabulary they have learned throughout the duration of the intensive.

In this class students look at the subject of culture as something that both impacts them as well as something that they can impact. The class includes topics on determining sphere of influence, handling criticism, and understanding various dynamics of culture in order to impact the world around them. For the final project in this class, students will choose an area of their culture that they want to see changed and present a way they will help bring about that change.

One of the classes in our February English intensive this year is centered on writing. In this class students work on writing in different forms such as haikus, formal business letters, and encouraging notes written to one another, among other such projects. The students’ final project for this class is to write a letter to someone who has impacted their life somehow. They will present this letter to the group as a whole on the final day of the intensive.

In the next few weeks (Feb 18-March 1), we will be hosting an English Intensive course at the Center from 9:30am to 1:00pm every day Monday-Friday.  One of the courses will focus on how finances impact our lives and we are going to introduce the idea of savings to the class using this piggy bank game.  The economy here is not great and many people feel they have no realistic chance of saving any money, so our goal is to reshape their thoughts about money and help them learn several God-honoring principles of investing.  It should be an interesting class that will lead to a lot of discussion!

The last few weeks have been the beginning of a new round of classes. This is always a little exciting and interesting to see how the classes will interact with each other. This is the bowl of M&M’s we used to get to know each other better. First, each person chooses 3-4 M&Ms. DON’T EAT THEM! Then, looking at the question key, we go around and answer questions about ourselves that usually spark the realization that we are all a lot more similar than we thought!
M&M Game Questions:
Red: What is your favorite food?
Green:  What is your favorite music?
Yellow:  What did you do for New Years?
Orange:  What is one of your hobbies?
Brown:  What is one goal for 2019?
Blue:  Who is someone you would love to go to lunch with (famous, from any point in time, or someone you already know)?

One of our students stopped by the Center with a plate filled with apples for our team.  It was nothing fancy — just a simple gesture of kindness that was heartfelt.  We are often reminded of the beauty of generosity and kindness by people who do not have much in the way of material resources.  It’s convicting when we realize how easy it is to slip into a greedy/hoarding mentality.  May you find simple ways today to express kindness, generosity, and hospitality to the people in your life!

New Year’s Eve is quite the spectacle in our city.  The fireworks display is overwhelming and nearly every family joins in by shooting fireworks from their home (or out of their apartment windows).  As I swept our back porch on New Year’s Day, I came across a cork and some bullet casings. Evidently our neighbors from the floors above us rang in the New Year with champagne and joined into the typical overwhelming fireworks by firing a gun in jubilation.  This made me smile in realization of what has become normal for our lives here!

“I don’t like how things have changed. I miss the old way things were done.”

Lord, breathe new life into old traditions, and protect this place and people from its enemies both seen and unseen. Revive what You established long ago.