To follow up the previous Saddleback mission trip to Gougou, I requested another visit at the center to learn more about the missionary works here. I arrived at the center in the afternoon of January 15 and received a warm welcome from Ruth and her coworkers. At 4:00 pm, Ruth arranged a meeting for me with Mr. Liu, the Principal and Ms. Lin the Counselor of Guogou High School. They invited me to present a lecture on chemistry related topic on January 22 and another lecture on my life story on January 26.

Saturday was a beautiful day and in the morning, I accompanied Ruth to the local fish market at Budai and toured the seaport.

In the Saturday afternoon, I taught “English as Foreign Language” class (EFL) to the center’s “B” and “C” English class students. The “A” class is the introductory level, while “B” and “C” class is the intermediate and advanced level, respectively. Ms. Ilene, she is in charge of Saddleback church’ P.E.A.C.E. last “E” section kindly provided me with the teaching materials.

Here is the “A” level class that was taught by VGM coworkers:

The students in the “B” and “C” level classes had couple years of English learning in schools already. Therefore, the reading part was easy for them to understand. However, they are not familiar with listening to “all English” teaching class and speaking to each other in the class. I insisted to use ONLY English in the class to simulate the situation of living in English speaking countries. At first, they were afraid to speak but gradually they started to practice conversations.

They learned the “taboos” of asking people’s age, weight, sickness and income but were curious as why? I told them that these “taboos” are culturally related. It is just impolite to ask in America.

This is the first time I ever teach school children English conversations. I will brief my experience to Saddleback church when I return to US. In addition, I will get more training from the church so that I can do a better job next time.

Sunday’s worship started at 9:30 am and Pastor Shulin gave a sermon on life transformation based on Corinth 5:14-21. Children’s Sunday school started at 2:30 pm with close to 30 children attended. In the afternoon, Pastor and Mrs. Wu from nearby VGM center visited and we chatted on missionary workers coming from America to serve in VGM centers. Then, we have surprised visitors, a married couple operating a musical shop. They have heard about Guogou center and would like to help and join the services. We are glad of their visit because they can teach the children/youth worship band music.