This month in Nepal has gone by in the blink of an eye, and this will probably be the hardest goodbye of the race yet. The ministry here has been absolutely amazing and we have gotten to dip our toes into so many different things. The first week, my team went to the slums in the evening and did a VBS-type program for the kids there. We also got to visit some churches and share testimonies, messages, and worship with them. We have also helped with repainting a Christian youth center, playing soccer with street kids, and ministering to women in cabin restaurants. All of these ministries have been amazing, but my favorite has been teaching English.
In the mornings, we would go to a house with 6 kids ranging from 4 years old to 9 years old. These children were such a blessing to us. They all had such recklessly joyful spirits, but also a deep desire to learn. They loved when we would come over and were so excited to learn from us. They were also very smart for their ages, and we were constantly amazed at how quickly they picked things up.
Then after that, they would go to school, and we would go help teach at the women’s center. We specifically helped teach English. Me and my teammate Andrew would teach in the level 1 classroom, and 2 other teammates, Katy and Tyler would teach level 2 and 3. Since these women were older, learning a new language was significantly harder for them for many reasons. For 1, learning a foreign language gets exponentially harder as you get older, but also, many of these women had never been to school before. In Nepal, it is still fairly new for women to be educated. Back in the mid-1900’s, it was still expected for women to do all of the work around the house, and they never got opportunities to go to school.
We had 4 women in our class, and 2 of them came consistently. They only knew very very basic English, and we basically reviewed the alphabet with them daily and taught them basic conversation like “How are you feeling?” And “What is the weather?”. We were told that although these women see the value in educating themselves, they feel a lot of shame about learning something new at their age, and their families are not very supportive, and some of their families don’t even know that they are taking these classes. For that reason, these women can easily be discouraged and feel like they aren’t very good or like they can’t learn, and we get to constantly remind them that what they are doing is amazing and that even though it may seem like the process is slow, they know a lot more than they think they do.
This past Friday, we got to have an English fair at the school, complete with fun games and prizes to help encourage the women. The ladies who work at the school had never done anything like this before, and we afraid that not many women would show up because generally, they are afraid of new thing because they are afraid of being wrong or not being good at something. We prayed that women would show up and they did! We had about 17 women show up, all of varying ages and skill levels, and we got to just have a good time with them, and remind them that they can do this and that we want to help and support them in this endeavor.
There were a few women who were in the level 1 class who were typically very quiet and doubtful come out of their shell. They answered the questions, laughed, made jokes, and we had such a good time with them. It was an amazing reminder that they are smart, capable, and loved.
The ladies in our level 1 class really loved us, especially Andrew, and they would request “the one with the curly hair”. We had so much fun with these ladies and whenever we would teach, there were many smiles and laughs, all while learning new things. There is a little video of some of the fun we had with these ladies that I will post later this month about us teaching them about emotions.
After we taught them this, one of their favorite things to say was “I am feeling happy!” And it was so true. We could see it in their faces and their smiles that they were happy to be with us and encouraged that they were learning a lot. And you know what, I was feeling pretty happy, too!
