Loving Neighbor by Teaching English
Members from our 2021-22 graduating class of teachers and students from Anthem Church’s first ever ESL Outreach.
Recently a local pastor asked me, “Looking back on this year, how have you achieved what you set out to do in starting this church?” Our ESL Outreach immediately came to mind. I knew when we started Anthem Church that many of our foreign-born neighbors struggled speaking in English. I knew this challenge was an opportunity for us to show the unconditional love of Jesus by helping them learn conversational English. What I didn’t know was the best approach for our church to effectively meet this need. Fortunately, God led the way. I got a call last fall from my friend, Grace, who had two neighbors, wanting to learn English. She asked me, “Do you think our church could help them?” Because Grace joined our church, knowing we were coming together to meet the needs of our foreign-born community, then it was not only a natural question, but the right question.
Grace is originally from Beijing, China and now lives in Bellevue. What brought her to the U.S. in 2011 was the American Dream. What she found was a relationship with Jesus. Being the first Christian in her family, Grace understands why our church must reach the 60,000 foreign-born residents living in Bellevue, and the tens of thousands more living throughout the Eastside. As a result, Grace was the right person, who I believe God provided me, to help our church start an ESL Outreach.
After praying, and talking with our church, I quickly realized that God had already prepared a team to form this ministry. Amy was trained to teach English in China, and had 10 years of experience. She wanted to help. Silas had experience teaching English in southern California at a Chinese-speaking church. He wanted to help. Then I asked two native English speakers, Kerry, who helped me lead Talk Time at Bellevue College, and Ben, who was an excellent Bible study facilitator, and they wanted to help. Not only that, but I found out that Wheaton College’s Institute for Cross-cultural Training was offering an online course that month to help churches, who wanted to effectively lead an ESL Outreach. Seriously?!? God is so good! Now we had the team and the training needed to start this new ministry.
We began last fall with 2 students and 4 teachers and grew to what became 8 students and 7 teachers, including Gary, Naomi, and Judy, who joined our teaching team earlier this year. We did have an additional 7 students participate at times throughout the year. However, there were 8 students, who actively persevered in learning with us, and so we celebrated their achievement through a graduation celebration at church earlier this month.
Pictured above is our first ever ESL graduating class, including both our students and teachers. This photo is a reminder for me in how God is faithful to His Church. I praise God for the perseverance of our teachers, who came together 26 times to facilitate both a “level 1” and a “level 2” class, which means, we offered something like 37 ESL classes in our first year. Wow! I praise God for their humility to participate in Wheaton College’s Institute for Cross-cultural Training so that we know how to best help our students learn conversational English through this high level certification. I praise God for the 8 students, who persevered, and revealed to me that we can meet this need for them and others like them. Pray for this coming fall as we seek to prepare over the course of this summer to be able to host another year of ESL Outreach. Pray for me to find the right curriculum, to prepare our teachers, and, Lord willing, to see God grow our ESL Outreach to 24 students. According to Dianne at Wheaton College, we have the capacity for at least this many students, which is incredible to me. Pray for our students, who want to continue with us, and that they can each invite one friend to join us. Praise God that we already have 2 new interested students.
God is leading us forward. So I look forward to this next year as our church continues to step into this significant need in our community. Lord willing, our new church will continue to become a more visible solution to our 60,000+ foreign-born neighbors as we seek to be a faithful witness for Jesus.