My Bible Study

Last Wednesday was the class party for my English bible study. It's been a great year with my students and it was a fun celebration. Unlike my class at the other church, the students have been really consistent in this class, so I've gotten to know them pretty well.

To celebrate, we had a potluck dinner. We ate dumplings, pineapple shrimp, potato salad, chicken and lots of fruit including mangoes and lychees which are in season right now. I made a homemade salsa which was a HUGE hit. Quite simple too, just cut up an onion, a bunch of cilantro, some garlic and about 4 tomatoes, add a little lemon juice and cumin powder and some salt. Mix and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour. Really simple and tasty!!

After we ate, we played a game and then I did a cookie demonstration! Since this is a smaller class (my biggest class is 48!) I can make cookies for then on occasion without spending a LOT of time (4 classes of 48 - almost 200 students in a day! that's a lot of cookies). Anyways, after sampling some of my baking, my students have been asking me to teach them how to make cookies. So, I brought my oven and all the necessary ingredients to bake and got all the students to help. As you can see they had a blast! We made chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin.





Rolling them out.














Baking in progress.














The next event of the evening was speeches! I taught them a couple of weeks ago about the basics of writing a speech, and tips for giving a speech. I gave them time in class to work on their speeches and get them checked.... I even gave them a list of topics to choose from. And I discovered that most adult students do NOT do homework. They also give better excuses than my high school students! What can I do, they're busy people. I did prepare prizes though, and those who had actually prepared speeches got to choose first.


I went first, giving a speech in Chinese, that apparently a bunch of people recorded, but I don't intend to post it online...sorry! I finished by saying "If I can do it, so can you!"
Here are the pastor and Pauline, another student giving their speeches. They both did great jobs! Actually I was really proud of all those who did give speeches, and I think it was a great way to challenge them. Not only did they have to write their own composition, but also present it to a group. I think it's definitely an experience you can learn and grow from.

This Sunday, we sang some of the songs we learned this semester in church, which was really fun. The pastor has been to Canada, and takes my class, so we had her introduce us in English while I "translated" for her! It was quite amusing. The neat thing is that some of the praise songs we've learned are familiar to the congregation, only in Chinese. For the last song, we had them sing the chorus in Chinese with us. It goes like this:

Deeper in love with you, deeper in love with you
I love you more than anything in life
Deeper in love with you, deeper in love with you
Oh how I love you Lord
深深愛你耶穌深深愛你耶穌
我愛你超越生命中一切
深深愛你耶穌深深愛你耶穌
哦我愛你耶穌