More Than Just English

I’ve seen a beautiful display of God’s love at OIM, and God has invited me to be a part of it. I’m humbled and thankful that He has shown me how He seeks to save the lost and how he has a particular love for the one, particularly the overlooked one.

In January, we began a new curriculum for the ESL class. It is a more advanced level, taking scripture from Luke about the birth of Jesus and using the written Word for English comprehension. I was excited to have material that directly pointed to Jesus, but I was also hesitant. Would it be too difficult? Would it offend? I couldn’t answer those questions; we have no idea who will show up at our English classes and with what level of English proficiency. But with prayer, I was very confident that this was to be the next step.

Days before our first class, I was introduced to a new volunteer, Jean. I was happy to have more assistance, but I wasn’t convinced we would have enough participants to make it worth her drive out. We never know how many are coming each week, but our four volunteers were always enough. Did we need more help? I couldn’t answer that. But God was up to something.

On our first day, only volunteers had shown up by the 12:30 start time, so we thought we’d spend the time in prayer and prep. At 12:35, one woman showed up and, after a few minutes, participants kept trickling in, so that by 2:00 (with only one hour left of class), there were 20 people in the room with 2 more ringing the doorbell to join us!

As I mentioned earlier, this wasn’t the first ESL session at OIM, but the third. One of the participants who showed up on our first day of this course was a Chinese woman who had faithfully attended the previous two sessions on Thrift Store English. She is 80 years old and a frequent visitor to the Tuesday Door Outreach at OIM. She has lived in Canada for many years and so is not someone we would consider a newcomer; even so, she has had no opportunity to learn English. Furthermore, she is illiterate in her mother tongue, Cantonese. How do I know that she is illiterate? Because our new volunteer, Jean, speaks some Cantonese as well. During the lessons, Jean is able to explain the story of Jesus to her in her mother tongue while teaching some English.

I am completely in awe of God’s love for this dear 80-year-old. She has been coming to OIM’s door outreach for years and is known to be joyful and affectionate to all the volunteers. But, despite the love expressed between her and the OIM volunteers, there has been no way for her to hear about Jesus. She felt the love, but had no way of knowing the author of it. UNTIL…

• A new curriculum clearly sharing the birth of Christ is chosen.

• A new volunteer who speaks Cantonese joins the team.

This woman, who for years has been living in Ottawa surrounded by Christian faith, who was even helped with her physical needs by the hands of Christians, is finally hearing about her Saviour and how he came in humility to this world for her.

My pride and selfishness are shaken:

I went into teaching ESL because of a love for a particular group of people - Muslims from the Middle East. God is showing me his love for people and opening up my eyes to the fact that there are many in Canada who have been here for years, and the Church has not reached them yet.

I wrote a curriculum (the one we used twice before at OIM) that I hoped would help newcomers gain Canadian retail work experience, teach English for a thrift store environment, and enfold newcomers into a Christian community by volunteering and building friendships with Christian volunteers. The curriculum was good, and a few participants even volunteered at the store, but it had not reached its full potential. It was difficult to let go of that dream for a season and to shift to this new scripture-based curriculum.

These shifts from my initial goals and passions have triggered questions in my heart.

"Who gave the burden on my heart for newcomers? Since it is God, can I give Him the right to choose the audience of His love? And, for the same reason, can I have the faith to lay down projects I’ve poured myself into if He asks me to?"

The Christmas unit ends soon, and then we are reading the Easter story with the same curriculum format. The participants will then read about the reason this baby was born in Bethlehem. Our 80-year-old woman has not surrendered her life to Jesus yet, but she and the other participants are being offered the truth about Jesus so that they can actually make a decision. The volunteers and I know that the Holy Spirit is present with us, doing His work of revelation through the English study of His Word. We are all growing through this experience, and I pray that God will continue to give us His eyes and heart for the “one” as well as for the crowds who have yet to hear of His love, as well as experience it.

~ Heather, OIM Volunteer

OIM's ESL teacher, Heather, is helping two ESL students after the main class further understand the lesson.