A couple of weeks ago now, Immanuel and Djolane from Haiti moved to Ibarra. They had been living in Quito since October or November of this past year. Immanuel found a job as an English teacher at a private institute called Academic English, and he immediately invited us to have Bible studies with the students as a way for them to practice their English and hopefully, to develop an interest in spiritual things. We agreed to come each Friday at 5:00 pm to study with any students who were interested. This past Friday was our first study.
We took with us printed copies of Matthew 1: 18-25 in English and Spanish as well as hymns #1 and #8 in English. We began by reading hymn #1 round robin style. Each student would read a verse, and then I would read the same verse so that they could hear it pronounced correctly. After we had read the whole hymn, we sang it together. I prayed, and then we read Matthew 1 around the table in the same way as we had read "Tell Me the Story of Jesus." Ookyoung and I both shared a few thoughts, mainly in English, with some clarification in Spanish thrown in here and there, and we finished our little meeting with hymn #8. This time, I read each verse first so that the students could hear how it should sound before they gave it a try. We talked about the hymn's meaning verse by verse as well.
There were five students present, and four of them seemed to understand a good portion of what was said in English. The other lady said afterward that she hadn't understood anything and that it stressed her out! We encouraged her to keep coming and said that we would try to use a little more Spanish in the next study. We hope that the same five will come and that others' interest will be awakened as well. It's a wonderful opportunity!
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