I have decided to finally come out of hibernation and start my weekly posts again! Woohoo! I had to write because I had to tell you how at church today, we heard Our Father in Greek, English, a Slavic language, a North African language, and last but not least, Georgian. I was so moved by this. We have such a cool congregation. Then, I taught Sunday school to our diverse kids, dropped my own kids off, and went to Spanish Mass.

I went to Spanish mass for someone else, but God did not waste this opportunity to minister to me. We were praying for immigrants. We were saying we are all immigrants (which I could totally agree with, since that’s who I am). I was thinking, this must be what my English Learners experience at my school — trying to understand what everyone was saying. Thanks to Senor Sawyer, my high school Spanish teacher, I was feeling like I got this, nodding to the key points of the message until the point when the priest asked what we all were. “Pescadores!” I said, and then couldn’t help laughing at myself because I had mistakenly said we were all fishermen instead of sinners. I meant pecadores, I wanted to say, but was too busy laughing at myself. That must also be how my students feel. Oh I got this! And then, Nope, I am an idiot. I left with such a heart for my kids. It’s hard trying to learn and speak a new language!

This past week, my self-contained kids took the WIDA ACCESS test for English Learners. People, they tried So Hard!!!! I told them, as my friend said, no matter what, they are all winners. This week, I start testing the ESL kids in the mainstream classes. I look forward to encouraging them and being as loving as I can, because yes, it is so hard learning another language! They are rock stars for trying hard!!!!! I am proud of them in advance.

Love to you, especially if you’re learning another language (which in my daughter’s case is the language of science)!

Have a wonderful week,

Elena