Saturday, December 5, 2009

WORLD RELIGIONS





Last Saturday we headed to Irapuato so that I could teach one of our theological education classes about world religions and sects. Leading up to the class I had been honestly, very stressed and nervous. Sadly, when I get nervous and stressed my Spanish seems to disapear and I revert back to very basic Spanish. Needless to say after a very busy week I had lots of butterflies in my stomach on Saturday morning. Where the students going to understand me? When Josh taught his class he had a manual to work for as a basis for his lectures. There was no manual for my class which meant that I had to develop all of my lectures etc. on my own. It was a huge challenge for me, but I made it through and was more than prepared come Saturday. I can only praise God that my Spanish functioned on Saturday and overall my class went very well. Being the perfectionist I somtimes am, I wish that I could have communicated in Spanish in exactly the same way I can in English, but hopefully someday I will be able to.

My favorite part of teaching the class was seeing the students have to think in ways they weren't used to thinking. I had them define "worldview" and "religion." The task proved to be more challenging then they expected it would be. Each of us has our own definition of religion that affects how we define our faith. I hope that each student's worldview expanded during our class time and that they can some how have a better understanding of the world around them through what they learned last weekend. Culture, art and religion are passions of mine, so it was a pleasure to be able to share that passion with others and challenge them to see the world differently. My favorite classes in college were ones that challenged my way of thinking and expanded my worldview.

In February I will be going to Saltillo, a city about eight hours away, to teach the same class. I had prepared too much material believe it or not and thus I will be making a few revisions. =0) I owe a big thanks to you all for your prayers, and to my friend and Spanish teacher for editing my lectures and powerpoint!

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