For more than 37 years, we have been working to find the most effective means of using English education to improve the lives of people in developing countries. While bringing practical training, we share another deeper offering of the heart — hope for a fruitful life. On any given day, the countries where our teacher's work are in the news — sometimes several in one day. Hardly a day goes past without something of global import emerging from one of these places.
If we were to ask an everyday teacher working for ELIC overseas what they see every day, what would they say?
In Jordan, the answer from one young teacher is bleak at first. “I see rough homes, chains, and bondage,” she says. “I see uncertainty and fear and sometimes one step forward, two steps back,” she adds.
Then she pauses for a moment. She looks out her window a little differently, maybe squinting a little in concentration. “Oh, and I see glimpses of new life springing from the trees. I see some leaves. I see some green…it feels ‘young’ like new green! Like being a part of seeing new seeds open that still need lots of care.” And suddenly, that’s the important part of her scene. It’s just the trees, just the green, just the care.
We ask that question to leaders who have been around for a while, too. After a long trip around the world, visiting teachers, government partners, and university leaders, one seasoned leader answered the question easily, “We see the power of seeds. Everywhere I go, I see that seeds are growing. You won’t believe what the seeds are producing now!” It feels like there is a recurring theme: the winter will pass and the springtime will come. Seeds planted now will be ready soon enough.
The fruit of today’s labor is changed lives, changed families, and a new course. For example, recently, one of our leaders ran into a previous student named Anna. Anna and our leader chatted briefly, and afterward, she wrote to add to her remarkable story:
Please allow me to share my story briefly. I graduated from a well-known university with a BS in physics. But I managed to get a job as an English instructor at the university. When the ELIC teachers came, I was teaching ESL courses to undergraduate students. I remembered that they had a group of young English teachers in their apartment once a week or a month. They taught English songs, shared American holidays and customs with us.
In 1990, I came to the US for graduate study with the help of another ELIC teacher and this has changed my life forever.
Over the years, I have wanted to find these ELIC teachers to share my joy and thank them for what they had done for me.
The teachers who went more than thirty years ago worked in faith, hoping that one day their efforts would pay off. They did. Simple acts of kindness and an invitation into a home planted a seed that later changed someone's life. Twenty years after that, a family’s history is completely re-written.
