A Drop in the Bucket

Tom teaching his class

There are many small differences between “Clove” Island (where we live now) and “Volcano” Island (where we lived from 2009-2011), but one bigger difference that effects us is the level of English on the island. We are English teachers and on Volcano Island we were part of a team of English teachers, there were various well-established and Islander-run English learning centers and many high-level English speakers amongst islanders.

Once we got to Clove Island we found little to no English teaching on the island. Our arrival was met with lots of excitement. Rumors of what we were going to do spread quickly. We were met with a barrage of questions by people all the time, “When will you start? Where will you teach? What time? How much will it cost?”. People stopped us in the street. People came to our house. Shopkeepers asked us as we shopped. We took down people’s phone numbers and promised to let them know when we had details, but we knew whatever we offered would not satisfy the demand.

Megan teaching, our son visiting the class

We decided to teach three Level 1 classes in collaboration with three different local groups. We let people know all the information, but before we could even finish explaining the complaints always began. “Why can’t you teach more levels? Why can’t you have a class for children? Why don’t you have a class at this time? Why don’t you have a class in my village?”  Then after a few weeks there was the new disappointment,  several people come to our front door to say, “I called the man for the class, but he said it was full already!!”

All we can do is apologize and say, “Sorry it is just the two of us right now and many people want to learn English. We’ll start new classes once these are finished. We’ll let you know.” Resigned they get up and leave.

Tom & students on break from class

We’re getting used to disappointing people, but we’re grateful that we are doing something that people on Clove Island are excited about and we only hope that islanders will be as excited for all the things that we and our team have to offer the islands.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
All our travels went smoothly. The kids did great on the planes and Megan’s back did well. Thank you for praying! Everyone arrived safely for the translation conference. 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for our teammates preparing to join us on the islands. They have only a couple more weeks to raise the funds to join us. Pray that their support teams would come behind them. Continue to pray for the translation projects-- we haven’t heard how the conference went yet. Pray that we would have a restful break off the islands.