Thursday, September 15, 2005

Spotlight's Listener's Club

i had a great evening of ministry last nite. after work, i headed over to English Fellowship Church, a couple blocks away from HCJB, and helped out with the Spotlight Listener's Club. (read page 5 for the focus on Quito...the one i went to last nite!) essentially, Spotlight is a 15 minute program broadcasted on HCJB (and perhaps other radio stations) throughout the world every evening, to help the listening audience learn english. Spotlight talks about different topics in what is known as "special English." Special English is simply a slower version of normal english spoken at a rate of approximately 90 words per minute. read the above link for more detail.

every wednesday the people of Quito and the surrounding communities meet in EFC for a Listener's Club, where we sit together and listen to the program, and afterwards we break up into small group and have discussion in english about the program. hence the name, Spotlight Listener's Club.

well, i had a great time! when i got there, the computer wasn't working so i rebooted it, worked some magic and got the show running in Windows Media. i also helped set up the sound board, and we were on our way! i was in my haven... hadn't touched sound board for quite sometime now. anyways... after listening to the program, we broke up into 3 major groups - Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. due to my lack of spanish, i took a group of 8 Advanced English speakers, and had a great time talking to them about the program. it was wonderful to see Ecuadorians progressing so much in their english. i met a woman, Alexandra, who has been attending the Listener's Club for 1 year and, clearly, is quite fluent in English now.

hmm, i wonder if they have a Spotlight Listener's Club for spanish :P

anwyays, there were over 100 people there, and apparently last week there were 160! it's a growing ministry here in Ecuador, and currently serves as a model for other countries. a woman from Ontario contacted the organizer, Janine, here at HCJB for resources and assistance to get on started in Toronto, to help immigrants and refugees who have trouble speaking english. Janine has asked me to help make the resources available on the internet, since other organizers are across the world. we're meeting up next week to talk about Spotlight's presence on the website and how we can implement it accordingly.

many people who come to the Listener's Club are not Christian's but have a desire to learn english. i've heard testimonies, however, that thru conversations, many people end up asking about God, or Jesus and what the whole deal with Christianity is about. many people have come to know who God really is thru this program. many of the English speakers are fellow missionaries at HCJB, and it was a privilege to serve last nite. this is definitely something i'll be doing every week until i leave.

if all goes well, either next week, or the week after, i will be going to a shelter/communal housing called Casa Gabriela (or Gabriel) to meet the street/abandoned boys who live there. According to Jerry, the President of Extreme Response, many of the boys there just want someone to talk to, learn english, play with, and the like. im not sure yet what my role will be, but im looking forward to helping the area there. Jerry told me that there are a set of twins originally rom Guayaquil (about 8 hours away) who ended up there, because when they turned 10, their father said, "ok, you're 10...you have to go live on your own now." so they hopped on a bus to Quito in the hopes to find more job opportunity (for a 10 year old!!) and met someone who worked with Casa Gabriela. can you imagine?? i'll let you guys know how that goes when i get there.

next week, the Kid's Club at Zamiza starts up again. it stopped for a few weeks, but now that the Alliance Academy is back in school...we'll be heading out again starting next week.

much love,
dL

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