Invite your Pastor to Lunch...

Today is the 'Invite your Pastor to Lunch' day. So Pastor John Endler joined me here at Covenant Village of Cromwell. CVOC has been my new home since this last August.

Since this is a Christian Retirement Community, CVOC is reaching out to area churches to show what we have to offer. This is a very popular addition to our marketing ventures and shows us off to good advantage. Lunch is always very good [as is dinner].

Pastor John and I sat with Burt Johnson, Executive Director of CVOC, and had a very enjoyable lunch. Burt and John had friends in common and John knew several of the pastors at other tables.

bloginfo: check out the CVOC website
blognote: I reviewed last month's Birthday dinner at my restaurant site

Hello USA! Class #5

Not too many adult students at today's class but lots of children [which is always a blessing].

Amy Endler and her son, Jeremiah, were visiting and helped out a lot with the concept of younger/older child. We reviewed our family trees and introduced brother/sister-in-law.

Most of the lesson concentrated on body parts. We practiced the singular and plural forms of these words and used the words: this/that and these/those. We drew happy/sad/tired/sleepy/angry faces. The five senses were introduced with statements such as 'I see with my eyes.'

We practiced being at the doctor's office/emergency room by telling what hurt. The 1 to 10 scale was a lot of fun with me hitting my finger with a hammer and yelling: 'That's a 10!'.

The second five books of the New Testament are pronounced in Karen and English very closely so that part of the pronunciation went very quickly. Our Bible passage for today was John 3:4-5.

News Release #2

THOMAS J. FORAN continues to work with ABCCONN in teaching ESOL classes for the Karen community. The classes are held at Pastor Gi Dor’s home in Hartford.

This past week BRUCE DAVIDSON accompanied Thomas in “career conversations”. Bruce reported that it was very enjoyable and that the members of the Karen Community are learning English very quickly. AMY ENDLER and JOAN DAVIDSON are both scheduled to be ‘guest speakers’ in the next few weeks.

titles of respect...

I have been honored with these titles of respect:
Don Tomás = Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico 
Mang Tomas = Philippines
Vovô Thomas = Brazil
and now
Pu Thomas by the Karen people from Burma [now in Hartford via Thailand]

Hello USA! Class #4

Very good class today with several new female students. The Wednesday afternoon Karen ESOL Conversation Class is getting popular.

Everyone came in and sat on the floor so that is the way the class went. We were all so much more comfortable that way. We reviewed my Family Tree and identified each member of the family. Practiced the difference between father and grandfather/mother and grand mother. Also spent time reviewing occupations/workplaces/tools.

The core of today's lesson was Seasons and Weather. Since summer starts this week, we wrote down the dates for each season. Today was hot and sunny and not breezy. Everyone had a good idea of telling time and the numbers but we practiced half-past and quarter after/of.

Pronunciation practice this week concentrated on the first eight books of the New Testament.

blognote: I can't believe that we are half way through this eight week session.

Protestantism in Burma

Protestants in Burma make up 3% of that nation's population, many of them Baptists. The Protestant Churches of Burma were begun in the early 19th century by Adoniram Judson, an American Baptist missionary. Since the 1800s, Christianity has become deeply rooted and has grown stronger through many adversities.

In 1966 all missionaries were expelled by the Burmese government, but the Burmese Church has become a vibrant missionary-sending movement, despite financial limitations and geographic isolation. Baptists, Assemblies of God, Methodists and Anglicans form the strongest denominations in Burma. Many Christians are well-educated, but cannot rise to positions of responsibility.

Most Christians are from the minority ethnic groups such as Karen, Lisu, Kachin, Chin, and Lahu. An estimated 0.1 per cent of the Bamar population is Christian.


bloginfo: above taken from Wikipedia
blognote: Picture is Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School and College.

Hello USA! Class #3

Today's class had a guest speaker! Bruce, my brother-in-law, came along and added to the lesson.
We reviewed last week's work and focused on the days of the week and months of the year. Bruce introduced himself and we went through our ritual of say, spell and write.

The Bible passage was 2nd Corinthians 5:14 and we concentrated on the pronunciation of Christ /krayst/ emphasing the final consonant cluster. Everyone did very well on that.

There were two topics for this week. The first was family. I showed my 'family tree' and we learned the members of the immediate family. After stressing my two children and two grandchildren, we contrasted that to Bruce's family. He has four children and eleven grandchildren. The students had fun repeating the names of all our grandchildren.

The second focus was occupations. We learned those of the people present: teacher, pastor, student and engineer. Bruce had brought a mini toolkit. The students learned tool vocabulary and we discussed uses of tools with appropriate verbs.

Each week the student population changes a bit. This week, with school in Hartford out for the year, the students were at a bit higher level than the first two weeks. I will adapt those differences into next week's lesson.

CBC Scroll

This month's Central Baptist Church Scroll is out.

Unfortunately they got my website address wrong! It's not blogspo.

Of course if you are here reading this you know it is blogspot!  

Hello USA! Class #2

Today's class had several more people. Pastor Gie Dor was the only male in the class. One of the female students has a very good grasp of English and was able to help out in some of the cultural portions of class. All in all, it went very well.

Since most of the class had not attended last week, the handout review became the basis for the lesson. They seemed to enjoy seeing the vocabulary and grammar patterns in writing. The students took copious notes. They are surely an enjoyable group with a great desire to learn this new language.

Today's Bible verse [1 John 4:19] emphasizes the role God plays in our life on earth. I went on to introduce the days of the week and months of the year. We practiced yesterday, today and tomorrow; and this month, last and next month. The pronunciation contrasts need more work on my part as it is difficult to find known vocabulary that fit a sound pattern.