Hello Friends,
I am coming to you today from the town of Kothagudem in Telangana state in India. I am here teaching at TLCI, a college started by one of the Graduates from VABC. I am teaching 60 Students "Understanding and Applying the Bible" I just completed my first day of teaching. It is going well. But I will save a better description, and maybe some photos for my next update. This Update is going to be about my work with kids.
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| Young girl from After School Care trying out some new glasses |
One of the biggest ministries we have here at Victory Asia base in Sri Racha is our English after school care. Each school day about 20-30 children between the ages of 4-6 come to our building after school where we teach them to read, write, and speak English through games, songs, activities, and instructions. It is part after school care and part kindergarten.
I started helping out shortly after the start of the college year, initially I was driving the van to pick up children from two of the larger catholic schools to bring them to our building (a service we provide for some of our schools where we have several students). The task usually took me about an hour, I would pick up the kids from school with one of our other staff members and my job would be done when I got everyone safely to the "tower." However, in October the bible college students went on their ministry trip, which meant After School care was in need of some extra help, so I started coming into class with the Kids...it was awesome, and I connected well with the kids, so even after the students returned from their trip I decided to stay on to help out.
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| My new best friend shows of our Pipe-cleaner people |
This ministry is quite successful and between the end of January and the end of February we saw attendance almost double, we had to recruit more students to help with the teaching and divide the class into three levels, based partly on age groups, and based partly on English skills.
In Thailand the School Calendar is different from the Western Calendar, really because the seasons are different. The two big breaks they have are a 3-4 week break in October, which seasonally is the harvest season, so the schools take this time off, the other, longer break, is from the about the end of February, first week of March, until Mid-May I believe. Some schools take longer breaks...some shorter, so I am not fully sure when the "official break" occurs. This time period is basically the hot season in Thailand; and the planting season. During these breaks we run day camps for children 4-12, these camps are large draws, we get about 60 children out to these camps and they are always a lot of fun as we not only go through our "Regular" teaching, we also have a lot more play time and we usually take the children out on a field trip once a week. We divide the children into age groups: 4-6 in one group and 7+.
The Camp in October I only helped out by driving for field-trips, and maybe hanging out with the older children a few times. But this time I have been much more active with the kids, helping the younger ones daily with their lunch, and with the nap time, as well as teaching the older children one day a week. We have quite a few children that only come to our camps, and then we also get quite a few new children each year as well, this time around we have about 10 Japanese students, they do not speak much English and little Thai so it has been a challenge getting them to understand the teachers.
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| One of our young Thai volunteers helping camp kids with an activity |
Sri Racha has a large number of Japanese people living here. They have all come for work, some come for a short while and go home, but more and more are making this their permanent home. Sometimes it is business men and they bring their wives and children with them, sometimes it is single moms. We are regularly being asked to help in teaching English to both Japanese children and adults, there is great opportunity.
I have quite enjoyed working with the kids during the camp, we have some pretty amazing kids coming and they seem to like having me come and teach. Several of the children have gotten pretty attached to me, too, it is like having another 20 nieces and nephews to hang out with everyday. It is going to be a quiet, and calm couple of weeks for me here in India while I am teaching, I may even find it a little lonely.
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| Enjoying his morning snack |
In the bible college we had two classes this month: Old Testament Survey, taught by Pastor Jonathan Krenz; and Worship, taught by Pastor Paul Militsala. We also took part in the Pattaya Gospel Music Festival. I also got a small taste of what next year is going to be like: Pastor Ken and Pastor Dean were away teaching in Nepal and India respectively, so I was "running" the college on my own. Pastor Ken is retiring at the end of this year, and Pastor Dean is moving to Cambodia to work at a Christian School there; as we do not have any other missionaries coming on this year, I will be managing the college for the coming school year. Pastor Al will be the dean, but he is also very busy with the churches and other areas of ministry, so my role will be expanding.
Well that is about all to talk about today. We have about one month left in this school year and then it will be summer break with 7-weeks in Asia, and then we do the whole thing over again. I will update you next month about my time here in India, and how the last few weeks of college went.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and your prayers and support,
Tyler
A Boy WonderLabels: Daily Life, Thailand, Update, VABC