Welcome to MONTH 11, my final month on the World Race! We
are spending the month in Gua Musang, Malaysia working with an amazing man of
God and his lovely wife. A blog on their family is sure to come, so I will
spend this one instead focusing on what month 11 holds for my team and I.
Our ministry this month is teaching English in a teaching
and learning center and helping to homeschool our contact’s children. Students
in English classes range in age from a class of 4-6 to an adult class. We also
have a lot of side projects that include cutting articles from newspapers,
recording videos to help teach ethics, painting murals, illustrating a book our
contact wrote, and a few other odds and ends here and there.
Upon entering this month, the overall consensus was “we’re
teaching English, again?”. It’s a sentiment that I am glad to say I
haven’t shared, but it has been difficult for me to encourage others around me
and to share my excitement.
I feel that English is a perfect ministry. It’s a great way
to build relationships with people as we are forced into a student/teacher
relationship setting. There are also numerous ways to incorporate faith into
each lesson. But on top of all of that, I’ve learned that teaching English is
one of the best ways I can improve the lives of the people I come in contact
with.
We’ve all heard the saying “give a man a fish and you feed
him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”. This is how I
look at teaching English. Yes, I can give money. Yes, I can feed people. I can
give them clothes, and build them a house. But that is simply putting a
Band-Aid on the problem and isn’t solving the issue. By teaching someone
English, I am providing an opportunity for a better life. You may not realize how
blessed you are in the simple fact that you can speak English. Around the
world, English is viewed as the way to a better life. It provides job opportunities,
and allows people a future they wouldn’t have otherwise.
By teaching English this month, we are not only building
relationships and sharing the love of Christ, but we building bridges to better
lives. In countries like this one, speaking English is the only resume one may
ever need.
This is an add in one of the newspapers here, stressing the importance of English. Messages like this appear almost everyday.
**Also, I wanted to send out an extra thank you to everyone
who has supported me in every way on the race. I am deeply blessed to have a
wonderful group of family and friends to return home to. I am also deeply
blessed to have had to many financial supporters and have been fully funded for
over 6 months now. My friend and teammate, Aisha Davis, is still looking for
over $3,000 in her support account that will be added to the other bills she
already owes once she returns home. Would you be willing to donate to her and
help eat away at that number little by little? If you would like to donate, you
may do so by clicking here: https://www.adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=worldrace&desc=For%20Aisha%20Davis
