Journal Entry #8: Friday, May 21, 2010

It’s still raining here.  It has rained every day since I have been here with varying degrees of downpour.  There seems to be a few hours each day when I think it’s finally done but then it rains again.  I’ve learned not to leave my apartment without my newly purchased umbrella.

​I finally had a rather slow day.  I was almost ready for that.  Friday morning I met the girls to attend their class.  They went to an English class to introduce themselves and let the students speak English and ask questions of them.  The teacher, Aurelie, spilt the class into two groups and had the girls each take a group, then sit in a circle and ask questions about American culture.  It seemed to be a much more relaxed environment.

We had been required to turn in our passports to be registered with the Government as a visitor and they were now ready to give them back to us.  Helen, the young teacher who had set up our classes here, walked with me to help me find my way to the proper office to acquire those passports.  I did that and then headed back to my apartment because of the rain.  

I was trying not to, but I ended up taking a morning nap, and I did so for about an hour.  Then I snacked a bit from my newly stocked pantry and walked outside to find a student, Amy, whom I had met a few times already.  She was actually walking to come and see me to ask me questions she had about the most recent Bible study she had with our girls.  They had told her that if she had questions that she could ask me, Edwin or any of the other older Christians that are here.

Her questions were profound – she did not understand the concept of grace.  She thought grace was defined as elegance!  Of course it is, and I can see how anybody new to English could have mistaken the two concepts, spelled and pronounced exactly the same as each other.  That was easy… but then she wanted to know, “If there is a loving God, why is there so much evil in the world?”  I explained to her that God made man with choice and that when man chooses wrong there are natural consequences to be suffered, and that all evil comes from the Evil one, not God! Finally she wanted to know if the world was created with what is essentially the “Big Bang,” as she had learned growing up.  I explained that it may have been a big bang when God created the world but God did in fact create the world.  But, I went on to ask her, if God said something, and a man on earth said something that disagreed with Him, who would she believe, the man or God?  She smiled and said, that’s so easy – God!  “Now I know,” she said, “You made that so easy for me to understand!”

Then my two guy team members showed up wanting to go to dinner so she called two of her friends and the six of us went out to eat.  We were done about 7:30 – I headed back to my apartment for an early evening!

I had emailed some of my photos to a few students that had asked me to do so.  I have been giving my email address to some of the students and have been getting delightfully amusing messages.  Here are some responses:

From Faye:
Steve, 
I have received the photos, thank you very much!

Let me tell you how much we enjoy chatting with you. Today Helen said that she wish to company you every day in order to improve her English, also she thinks that your life is free and relaxed which she is dreaming about many times. We feel easy to communicate with you and you are really a good teacher.

We are looking forward to the Monday morning's study.  We appreciate it.     
                  
Great respect to you!
Faye

From Helen:
Steve,

Thank you for sending me these photos, I love them.^_^

It’s really my honor to have a special and wonderful day with you. I learned more about Americans. You are really kind and warm-hearted. Thank you very much.

By the way, I would like to take a photo with you next time.

Helen

Here is another email that I received from one of my students.

From Amy:
Steve, 

Thank you again for the dinner and the pix!

My fav part from yesterday is that when you and Will sat there chatting, so original American, I learnt a lot. Thanks for letting me be there.

Oh and one more thing, I know it's extremely impolite when I laughed so hard at the dinner, but I found the 3 of you eating with chopsticks sooooooooooo amusing!   lol 

I could live 5 more years having so much fun.  I wasn't laughing AT you guys, I just found it so cute, especially Daniel! LMAO... Think he'd understand and won't blame me for being impolite?

Amy