zero, unu, doi, trei, patru, cinci, sase, sapte, opt, noua, zece
One of my main ministries while in Romania was helping out with an organization called Hope for the Community. The organization’s focus was to help those in need in the community by providing both the physical and spiritual needs of the people. One of the ways they did that was through an after school program.
My job daily was to help teach the children math and English. To be honest, the first week was very difficult. I was trying to teach children who did not speak or understand English. I was trying to figure out how to teach them how to do simple addition problems but found it very hard when they did not understand me and I could not understand them. Math seemed like a simple enough task but it was anything but. I found myself getting frustrated with the communication barrier. And teaching English was the same thing too. They would repeat what I was saying but not really understand me. They seemed to have the numbers 1-10 down pat, but really all they had done was memorize the sounds and they didn’t really know that each sound represented a number.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had run out of actions and hand gestures to try and teach. I was expected to teach but I was at a loss for how that was going to be possible. But I decided I had one last thing I could attempt to do in order to make my task more possible; I could learn to count in Romanian.
And so I did.
I was surprised how something as simple as being able to count from 0-10 in Romanian would make my teaching go 100 times better. When the kids would ask me if 2+2 was patru, I could nod my head and see their faces light up as they would able to solve the math problems in front of them. My frustrations started to diminish as the language gap was closed a little. I started to enjoy spending time with the precious kids who came everyday to learn. I was greeted with pure joy everyday. As soon as I would walk in the door, they would run over to me calling my name with smiles and giving me hugs.
English was still something I never really figured out how to teach them well, but instead of looking at the English part as a failure or discouragement, I choose to see the math part as a huge success and a great accomplishment during my short but rich time at the after school program.
(pictures taken by Lyndsay Felps)
