Usually, when we write about ministry commitments / teaching opportunities away from home, Mark is the one traveling and I am home.  This time, our roles were reversed.  I just returned from an exciting week of ministry in the town of Santos (in the state of São Paulo), where I was invited to teach a week long intensive ESL (English as a Second Language) course.  This course was sponsored by the Litoral Baptist Theological Seminary, and open to their students as well as others in the community.

Litoral means coast; as you can see there is a beautiful coastal view in the port city of Santos.  Yet the other two pictures show more of the urban reality.  While considered a small city by Brazilian standards, this city of 434,000 people is home to the Baptist seminary that serves the entire area known as the Baixada Santista. 

The Baixada Santista is a metropolitan area located on the coast of São Paulo state in Brazil, with a population of 1.7 million. Its most populous city is Santos. As an administrative division, it was created in 1996. It consists of 9 municipalities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baixada_Santista

Many of the seminary students drive anywhere from 60 to 90 min, one way (depending on the traffic) after working all day, in order to attend three hours of classes in the evenings.  Given the fact that the students would be arriving to class tired from a full days work and driving through stressful traffic conditions just to get there, I was faced with the dilemma of what I could actually teach them that would be of value in only 5 nights.  The students were a mixed group, with the majority being true beginners,  many with zero understanding of the English language, and a few who were intermediate level learners.  Twenty-four students in all made this an interesting group to work with.  Pr. Dilean Melo, the Rector of the seminary has a vision for offering masters level studies within the next few years (currently, they offer only bachelor’s level courses).  With so many quality theological resources available at a low cost in English (many even free, in digital formats), the goal is to is to equip students with a course designed to meet their unique academic needs.

I have taught ESL as a ministry here in Brazil for over 20 years.  One of my favorite resources was published by the the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (now known as NAMB) back in the late 1980s.  This material uses the Gospel of Mark to systematically teach grammar, vocabulary, listening skills, writing, pronunciation and conversation while at the same time presenting a clear gospel message.  Using this material as my basic text, and additional materials which I have compiled over the years, I planned for this 15 hour “language immersion” week.  While I have taught this material over the course of many semesters in different locations in the past, I wasn’t sure how it would work to cram a lot of information into tired brains and bodies after a long hard day, 5 nights in row in a language not their own.  I began to pray for God to show me what He wanted to be the end result of this “experiment”.  Several weeks after I began praying about this opportunity the Lord impressed upon me to invite a young lady from my weekly Bible study group to assist me.  Usually I teach this material alone, but I felt this would be a good opportunity to train someone else in this method. So, I invited Myland to join me for the week’s teaching.

Myland is from Indonesia and married to a Brazilian.  I met her through the ministry of the International Congregation from the First Baptist Church of Curitiba. Shortly after moving to Brazil a year and half back, Myland and her husband André began attending our bi-lingual Bible study group that meets in our home. Myland has a passion for evangelism, a servant’s heart and I soon discovered, was a very creative teacher!  She and I taught “tag-team” style that was so natural, it could only be attributed to God answering our prayers! It was as if we had been team teaching together for years!

As the week progressed and the students really began to show their hunger for learning the Lord impressed upon us that this one week was only the beginning of something even bigger than what we had initially imagined.  The result:  I will be returning to Santos one weekend a month, teaching 3 classes (1 on Friday and 2 on Saturday) to this group and one other pilot program for a small advanced-level class.  In addition, I am developing the on-line component for the students to continue their study with me via distance education during the month.  Our goal is that students will complete the basic course in the first year, the intermediate course in the second year, and by the third year, the students will be ready for a rigorous academic study focusing on reading and writing theological English.

 

I am thankful for this unique opportunity from the Litoral Baptist Theological Seminary. I am thankful to Southern Baptists for producing high quality materials.  I am thankful for the students’ willingness to spend long hours studying English, in addition to their other seminary courses, full time jobs and family responsibilities.  I am thankful that Myland was able to go with me and assist me.  I am thankful that our husbands (André and Mark) were willing to let Myland and I leave them to fend for themselves for the week. And, I am thankful for Pr Dilean, his wife Vania and their lovely family who so graciously hosted us for the week, took care of all our expenses, and made the course affordable for the students.  I’m looking forward to next month’s classes already.