So this past month I was in Cambodia! Yay!
I am also now over halfway through this experience, which is crazy to think about. It seems just like the other day that I was traveling to Atlanta to leave, now I have 5 months left…time flies.
So as the title suggests, I have been subjected to doing something I do not enjoy doing this month. But, I am jumping a little a head of the story…
This month we are serving at an orphanage. The kids are the cutest, sweetest kids I have met thus far on the race. We are living at the orphanage, so we get to do life with these kiddos for the month. The second day in we sat down with our host and found out we would be teaching English for an hour two different times, so essentially 2 hours a day but divided by a break. No big deal right? It is only for two hours a day…how wrong I was
So we divided the kids by what they knew and then divided up ourselves to teach the four different levels. Somehow I ended up by myself with four kids. Two boys and two girls between the ages of 10 and 12. I got this, or so I thought.
The week commenced and we began teaching. I quickly found out that I am not the teacher I thought I was (not that I thought I could be teacher material, but I mean my dad is a teacher so something should have rubbed off, right?) I wish.
The first challenge I encountered: the little angels did not understand very much English…
Well then…hmm. They could recited the alphabet, numbers, days and months back at me…But I quickly found out that while they could parrot all these words at me, they really didn’t know how to spell or read said words…
The second challenge came in the form of how to teach them…
I have never taught someone to read before or how to recognize words, but I figured I could not go wrong with repetition…repetition….repetition
The third challenge: limited supplies
How does one teach anything when all you have is a whiteboard, a dying dry erase marker and limited funds?
The answer: creatively!
Thankfully I had access to some paper, so I made flash cards! I pulled out my markers and wrote the color on one side and then copied it onto the other side in black ink.
They worked out so wonderfully I made two more sets: numbers and shapes. I used them in many different ways and they have been very helpful in slowly getting the kids to recognize some English words.
The kids ended up loving the flashcards. Thankfully I was able to create some games and activities out of these cards to help teach the kids. They slowly began to recognize the words and every time they knew a word without guessing, it was a small victory.
Not all days went well or were considered victories. Most days there would be students dashing in and out of the room, lying on the floor, or just plain ignoring me as I tried to present a new game or group of words. Sometimes they would doodle in their notebooks or slip out the door when my back was turned. They tried my patience with out fail and I did not always respond gently or with love. Some days I would finish teaching and wonder how I would do it all over again the next day.
When I ended the class after a less than productive day, I was reminded of a verse. So I went back to the room, looked it up and then let the words flow over me in waves of refreshment.
“I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13
God, who is so much bigger than me and so much stronger than me gives me His strength to continue. This verse helped me continue on. A few verses before this one there it says,
“…for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” -Philippians 4:11b
Through these two verses I was reminded that God has me where he wants me to further his kingdom and I don’t need to use my own strength or do it on my own. God has got me in his hand and it is through his strength not my own that things will be accomplished.
I am not saying things were magically better the next day and the kids were perfect little angels, but my attitude and how I handled them running all around got better. I still messed up, but by resting in God’s strength things did not seem as bad.
