Written by Anna Luginbill, Senior Instructional Specialist
The computer screen flickers on. I sit down at my desk. An alert pops up on my screen: “Student has entered the waiting room.” I click a button, and a face appears. Today is a new day with new topics to cover. I lock eyes with my camera, smile, and we begin.
I see their faces every day, the headscarves, the tired eyes, the smiles. I see their homes in the background: blank walls punctuated by windows, little heads popping into the frame from time to time, soothing words spoken by mothers and fathers in their native tongues to their fussy little ones. Families together. Studying, working, parenting. I often get messages like, “Sorry, teacher, I will be late to class today. I have to pick up my son from school. He’s sick,” or “Teacher, I have to work late tonight. I can’t make it to class.” But more often than not, they are here. They log on faithfully, spending three hours of their precious time looking at a screen, listening to me and their classmates, grasping their textbooks, and, more than anything, sharing their lives and experiences with me in a second language. It is such a privilege to have this window into their lives and to partner with them in their language development as an English teacher for World Relief.
Hanna* is my student again this semester, and I am happy to have her back. She took my class for a few months last year, and in the spring, I worked with her to refine her résumé and practice interviewing. She nailed her interview and was hired at Amazon in their safety compliance department. Now, four months later, she works nights. Even though she is working in her field and taking care of her husband and son, she still wakes up early twice a week to take English classes. She sacrifices sleep to keep studying and improving. Hanna represents so many of my students, those who have plenty of language skills to survive but keep studying because they have bigger goals and bigger dreams, and they won’t stop until they achieve them. There is always another step to take.
Last month, in a unit of our textbook, we talked a lot about success. “What does success mean to you?” “How do you think most people define success?” My students often give insightful answers that stay with me long after our discussions end.
“Success is safety — not having to worry about my house being bombed.”
“Success is my children’s happiness.”
“Success is feeling comfortable in my new country.”
“Success is speaking English fluently.”
“Success is being able to rest without worry.”
These words echo in my heart as I go about my work and my busy days. My life seems so small sometimes, my desk, my van, my little house with my little kids. But then I log onto Zoom, and suddenly I am part of a global community with students from all over the world. World Relief’s value of creating welcoming communities has a tiny reflection in my Zoom windows.
I was reminded of where our hope originates while reading Ezekiel 37 recently. This passage recounts Ezekiel preaching to the bones, bones so long dead they are dry and dusty. What a profound loss. But God restores. He breathes new life into the dead things. He returns ligaments and flesh onto bones that had been long dead and forgotten. He restores where there had only ever been desolation. Our world is full of this desolation. Some of my students have come from intense hardship and destruction. Many have suffered greatly and are often still reckoning with what they’ve endured. But they come to class because they have hope. And that hope is what World Relief helps provide, because we know the source of true hope. It is in our God, who brings life from death and beauty from ashes.
My students are your neighbors, your employees, or your kids’ classmates’ parents. They are strangers at the playground or at the supermarket, maybe speaking another language or wearing something unfamiliar. But they are working hard to build better lives in a new country because they have hope for the future. And getting to know them has changed my life infinitely for the better. It can change yours too. You can be part of providing that hope without even leaving your home. We have opportunities to volunteer as conversation partners in our remote English classes. You can also give a monthly donation to World Relief. You, too, can join in these beautiful stories of redemption and have a small part in bringing restoration and hope to this broken world.
*Name changed