Dear ESL Teacher
Our weekly Talk Time, which is led by Judy, started just a couple of months ago. We already have maxed our capacity, and are praying for native English speakers to help us meet this growing need in our community.
Just before Christmas, Grace told me that over 100 foreign-born residents were interested to learn more about our Adult ESL Outreach. She started a public text message conversation with some of her contacts, which caught other people’s attention from all over the U.S. and then snowballed into this God-sized group of people. So we hosted a “Christmas Day Promotion” on Zoom with over 50 people, predominantly of Chinese background, coming to learn more about our church’s ESL ministry. We followed-up with those from the Seattle area, and some have even visited us at our weekly church gathering. For such a small church, God is accomplishing so much more than I could have ever imagined for our new church.
God is bringing the world to our city. Of the 60,000 foreign-born residents in Bellevue alone, we know over 12,000 report that difficulty understanding English limits their purpose in society. For this reason, we provide an English class and Talk Time to love our neighbor. What started as Grace’s idea over a year-and-a-half ago, and with the support of our church, God has truly developed this ministry into a fruitful outreach. Two years ago we started with a couple of students, and this grew to 8 students by the end of last Spring. Last fall we grew to 14 students with capacity for 10 more to join. Today we have maxed our capacity at 24 students, and started a wait list of over 30 students.
More than numbers, one student wrote a letter to encourage us (see below). She wanted us to know why this ministry matters to her and the other students:
Dear ESL Teacher,
Thank you so much for helping us learn English. Every class, you are always smiling and always so patient. You are never angry about words that we cannot read or that are mispronounced. Instead, you read it and let us follow you repeat over and over again. You have been encouraging us.
We are very happy to be able to study here, we are already feeling our progress. Our confidence is getting stronger and stronger.
Thanksgiving holiday is coming soon, we really want to offer our gratitude. Thank you for dedicating the best Friday evening to us. You are the ones who make us feel warm in a foreign land. You gave us great motivation to learn English.
Thank you very much!
Your students.
We need 2 English native speakers to join our growing ministry. Would you pray with us for God to provide for this need? And, if you know of anyone, then please email Pastor Phil at phil@anthemeastside.com. All they need to be is confident at speaking in English, and willing to teach and to love people well. We have tools and a simple way for us to teach English so that it’s manageable and as easy as possible.