Through the work as a Police Chaplain I see God's hand moving. Several years ago as I pastored at King Springs a young female officer accepted my invitation to attend. She soon came regularly and began to bring her mother. Both began to serve and found that the Lord was working in their lives. The Mom is Carole Sneed and over the last several years she became involved in ESL (English as a Second Language). She had never taught this before and yet she was called by the Lord to get involved. I ask her to write up her experiance as the Lord has used her in a great way. Her is her stor.
She thinks it started with a strange dream…she saw “her”
house from a distance, people, many people,
perhaps families for there were men, women, boys, girls coming through—a
steady river of faces, happy, warm, loving faces of all nationalities,
moving through the house in one door and out another. Puzzled by the strange dream she felt it was
from God and wondered what the dream meant and why was she there? She tucked the dream away in a corner of her
memory web.
Helping people had always come easy—people in need, the
sick, down and outers, homeless and through all this there was another thought
caught in the memory web. If
communication is a key to mainstreaming into our culture, then teaching new
arrivals to our country how to speak English more fluently would be one of the
building blocks to their success and acceptance by “us”. If she moved to a foreign country and did
not speak the language, she hoped there would be someone who would help her
learn the language.
She prayed and spoke to her pastor about the idea God was
unfolding in her heart. Could she start
an ESOL class at the church. Would be
members be supportive? The pastor was
immediately receptive and enthusiastic about the idea. He spoke to members who agreed the class
should begin. Elementary books
purchased, a room chosen. Many fliers
were handed out at area businesses, each Wednesday and Sunday evening, she
waited and prayed—no one came.
Still, believing this is where God wanted her to be, she
waited. One Sunday the pastor said a man
had called who had children who needed to learn English. The father came with two teenage boys who did
not speak any English. He spoke with a
heavy accent. The boys were to start
school soon and needed help. The pastor
made sure each of the boys had his own Bible to take home.
Ok, God, she said, “I need lots of help here, how do I
prepare these boys to be able to walk into a high school in 4 weeks—did you
hear what I said? FOUR WEEKS????” . She continued that God must have gotten a
chuckle out of that prayer.
God supplied all of the ideas—lead her to websites for
articles teenagers would find interesting, created crossword puzzles, lists of
the 1000 words most needed to begin English communication.
The students came twice a week, eager, excited and thirsty
for the knowledge. Their father made a
rule, “we are in America and will only speak, hear and read English!” The church members were proud of the boys and
easily and warmly accepted them.
School began and homework soon came to class. They worked through it (the homework) and as
the homework increased through the school year, it was clear it was time for
them to spend their time on school lessons.
The boys kept in contact with her through emails and
occasional family and holiday outings.
Their English was improving and at the end of four years—they both
graduated from high school. She was
invited to attend the ceremony and could not have been more proud of these
young men.
The joy of seeing themselves improve in speech and writing
emails built self-confidence, but they remain humble and grateful for the
teacher and the pastor who reached out in God’s love and gave from their
hearts.
Through those four years, she realized she had received more
than she felt she had ever given to the boys and is so thankful she did not
ignore the Holy Spirit’s urgings and gave a little of her time to
strangers. A seed was plant, nourished
and one day will bear the fruit.
The dream of many, many people coming through God’s
house—not her house—that was it. She is so thankful He allowed her to be part
of the dream that will continue to become reality.
She recently spoke to the pastor of her new church about
where she really wanted to serve, except their church did not have an ESOL
class. His response was, “why don’t you
start one?” I think the dream will
continue to become a reality.
