Alpha for ESOL Presentation

 
Calgary Alberta, April 26, 2014


With Wanda Ho, National Chinese Alpha Coordinator
Today was a whirlwind trip to Calgary for a conference sponsored by ESL Cooperative Ministries. I made the trip with Wanda Ho, our National Chinese Alpha Director, and Nora, a friend from Edmonton who is actually leading an ESOL Alpha (English for Speakers of Other Languages). This actually gives Nora more experience than me in this area, and her presence and input was invaluable in our presentation. Wanda actually gave the bulk of the presentation, with experiential input from Nora, while I merely gave a 15 minute overview of Alpha in general at the beginning. My main contribution for the day was as chauffer.
We left the Edmonton area at 5:30 AM, arriving at Southwood United Church by about 8 to set up, then the return trip leaving Calgary by about 4. I had made my calculations based on the fact that this was a Saturday. Had it been a weekday we probably would have had to add the better part of an hour for traffic. For those who may not know Calgary's Deerfoot Trail, it is the most Jekyll and Hyde of roads - a joy of a freeway to drive when there is no traffic, a nightmare at rush hour.
Our presentation was well received. Everyone in the room (about 35 for our breakout presentation) knew about Alpha to varying degrees, but all were enthusiastic to hear about our ESOL program.
We are very careful to represent this program for exactly what it is - a presentation of the Christian Faith to those whose first language is not English. We do not represent it as an ESL class, a class to teach English, although I believe some of the participants may take it for that purpose - to practise English language skills.
The course offers more flexibility than "regular" Alpha - always with a live speaker as opposed to videos - and giving the presenter the flexibility of using personal stories and presenting the material (from notes provided by Alpha) from his or her own personal perspective, as God's Spirit leads.
I won't get into too many more of the details of Alpha's ESOL program beyond saying that the entire thing is available from Alpha Canada, free for downloading upon registration of a course.
Suffice it to say I found the event quite enlightening. It opened my eyes to some of the challenges faced by new guests to Canada, whether workers, students or their spouses, whose needs are often ignored or just not known by us comfortable and established Canadians. It was good to see that there are people with hearts to reach out to these guests or new arrivals to Canada, to help them acclimatize, to make them feel welcome in a new and strange land, and offer them the message of the hope that we have in Christ.
Blessings,
John


Comments

  1. EvelynApril 27, 2014 at 6:28 PM

    With the great numbers of newcomers to Canada, we get to be missionaries without leaving our countries! This looks like an exciting field with great promise.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John KApril 27, 2014 at 8:26 PM

    “We can now reach the world without changing our postal code.” One thing I learned from one of the other presenters is that foreign students often spend face time with their families back home. When they become Christians, their families will know. They will hear. They will see the difference in their children. They will be evangelized through their iPads. Wonderful opportunities indeed

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wonderful People

Image
Anglican Diocese of Athabasca Synod - Peace River Alberta  Friday Oct 13 I drove 5 hours to Peace River to make a presentation at the Synod of the Anglican Diocese of Athabasca. Bishop Fraser Lawton would love to see as many of his parishes as possible running Alphas. Many of the delegates are actually familiar with Alpha, although, having run it often in the moderately distant past, may not be so familiar with all of our new materials. So Friday evening's dinner was turned into a model Alpha supper, including jokes and the showing of the invitational first video of the relatively recent Alpha Film Series. This version is hosted by Toby and Gemma, a hip young pair of presenters, and targeted at the Millennial generation, the 18 - 35-year-olds. I always say that baby boomers like it too because they too like to pretend they can still be young and hip. Between Friday evening and Saturday morning I met many great people and found quite a bit of enthusiasm for Alpha. If all comes ...
Read more

Whirlwind Tours

Image
Because, as the title of this blog indicates, this is a diary, it will not always contain great theological or philosophical revelations. Sometimes it will be just what a diary is - a record of my thoughts and/or activities. I have set myself a bit of a busy schedule over the next two weeks, but that's the whole point, isn't it. Even though this is my retirement career, I still treat it as a full-time job. Basically, I do my best to devote 9-5, five days a week to my Alpha duties, and Saturday and Sunday are never ruled out if Alpha stuff needs attention. So... my schedule as it stands so far for the next couple of weeks includes two presentations at St Paul's Anglican Church in Edmonton this Sunday, trips to Westlock and Morinville, AB, a Pastors' lunch presentation in Whitecourt and visits to churches in Provost, Wainwright and Lloydminster. One thing I like to do wherever I go is check out a bit of each town's history and sources of local pride. Many Alberta comm...
Read more

On the Road Again

Image
I'm in Grande Prairie this week, ostensibly to attend  a dance competition where my daughter, Jen's dance studio is competing, and doing very well, if I may say so with a bit of fatherly pride. However, as I do not yet have a travel budget, I stole the opportunity to make calls on the churches in town, with some very encouraging results. I have previously visited most of them during my time with Alpha, so this was a matter of renewing relationships and re-introducing myself in my new capacity with Christianity Explored . Most calls just involved friendly conversation and ministry updates. I have also told all my churches that I am happy to encourage them with Alpha as well, so I shared the joy of what is probably the main Grande Prairie Alpha church, over the number of new believers coming to faith through their Alphas. Then, however, without my having even mentioned it, he produced material on a new discipleship program they are considering - Discipleship Explored - ...
Read more