Team China

by Focus International

Team China was broken into two groups, serving at various locations, teaching English to high school students. Their purpose in going to China was to build relationships with the students in their classes, and after relationships were built, they have the opportunity to share with them the Good News.

In an email from the trip, team member Dave Roberts wrote the following about his experience teaching: "My students in my class are wonderful, adorable, sweet, incredible, intelligent, funny, and that list goes on. They are all 14-19 years old with the majority being 17. Each of us as teachers has students with relatively different levels of English proficiency, but my class ended up being the most fluent. We've only had three days of class so far, but we're already forming bonds. When I asked them the first day, only one student has a friend outside of the city they lived in. I am their first foreign friend."

In another email, Dave wrote, "My students are awesome! That is, they evoke in me a sense of awe and wonder. They are so intelligent it blows my mind. Though I am six years older then they, and have a college degree, most of them are probably only 3-4 years behind in the academic knowledge they posses. I love getting to know their different personalities, especially when I can just sit back and watch them interact when they are speaking their native Chinese. Who they really are is more evident when they speak their native tongue, rather than their second or third language, English."