Almost 3 weeks in!?

Teaching English?

This is crazy. This week I started teaching English. I teach at the Institut Nouvelle Vision. Max, the director of the organization told me that if I help teach English, they will help me learn Haitian Creole. Let me walk you through my first day.

It is 3:45 pm and I am 15 minutes early. I am told to follow the secretary into a classroom. At least that is what I think she said. There are only a handful of people that speak English at this place. I have no clue how big my class will be. I walk into the room and find 2 people. Sitting on one side of the table was a boy around the age of 12, on the other side was man around 30. Oh boy. I sit down and try not to freak out. A few minutes later the secretary comes in and gives me a marker and an eraser for the board. Am I the teacher? Is this my whole class? I start opening my notebook and acted like I had notes to write. I then stood up and started writing the alphabet. I then had them repeat after me. I said each letter. I then wrote CAT on the board and BAT. They repeated again. The secretary came in one more time. I asked for Max, but she doesn’t speak English. She struggled to say “Max coming.” I sat back down and tried to relax. When Max comes, I can communicate with him. Thank God.

Before Max got here, people started piling into the room. Men and women, young and old. An older gentleman comes in and introduces himself to me and says “I am the English teacher.” Hooray!!!

Max comes in and all is well. I now understand I am just an assistant teacher. I learn that these classes are 3 times a week for two hours at a time. This class, the teacher stars with previous homework. Then he asked me if I wanted to teach. I tell the guy that I have no clue where to start. He then tells me “Start anywhere you want. They are beginners.” I teach them adjectives. Do they understand me at all? I think so.

This school is so unstructured it isn’t funny. It is a mess. The English teacher does not even speak English that well.

I went in the next day to use their internet and do some research on teaching English. Then Max bought me a coke and a nice lunch at an extremely nice restaurant. Max was just sucking me in. I am now part of this school. I taught again yesterday and I taught for an hour and a half straight. I actually think I did pretty well.

The Coffee Project

Today I am supposed to be in Baptiste, but the plans did not work. What I will be doing up there is buying fruits and vegetables and coffee in bulk for cheap and bringing them back to PAP to sell. I will also be trying to contact the head of the coffee growers and talk to them about starting a co-op. I have been talking to the head of a coffee company and he is willing to help us out and grind and roast coffee for us. I think we are going to even export this stuff to the US, so if you are interested in some high quality coffee, keep checking out the blog. I might be able to hook you up.

Things were going slow before, but I am starting to get a lot busier. Other than teaching, I am doing coffee project stuff, discipleship with 8^th graders at the local school, and Discipleship program Bible studies multiple times a week with Haitians. When I am not doing this stuff, I am making connections with Haitians. I have talked to business owners, lawyers, and directors of NGOs. I was told by a wise man that it is all about connections in the Caribbean. The more people you know, the smoother things go.

Thanks

Thanks to all the thoughts and prayers. A special thanks to Salem Baptist, David Saetre, Stacie Furia, and Andy Goyke. Music has also been helping me out along with books. Thanks to John Piper, The Afters, Brandon Heath, This Beautiful Republic, Timothy Keller, Shawn McDonald, Lecrae, and Wes Pendleton.

Shout outs

I want to give a shout out to Lighthouse Cru, Baynet, Salem Baptist Church, Grace Miner, Northland College, and my man Jacob Sorteberg.

So, this blog post is not 100% yet. I will take pictures to post on here. Check back in a couple of days.