Volunteers at Conversational English (CE) often go beyond the classroom to help their international students navigate American life. Volunteers invest in the lives of students in usual ways, like meeting students for coffee, assisting them with doctor’s appointments and attending programs together at local churches.
But they also get involved in unusual ways.
“One of our volunteers walked a student down the aisle at her wedding in Brazil,” said Susan West, CE director. “We’ve had volunteers attend parent-teacher conferences, schedule lunches to practice ordering from a restaurant menu and shop for greeting cards, all of which can be very confusing when your English skills are weak.”
West said the volunteers’ efforts focus on a central goal: “When someone asks, we meet their needs.”
Often the needs go beyond language. Several years ago, West taught a student to drive. The woman, a native of India, was taking a city bus to class each week but was being bothered on the bus. West helped her get her learner’s permit and then taught her to drive the one route the woman wanted to learn — how to get from her house to church and back again.
“Her husband let us use their car and told me, ‘I trust you with my car and my wife,’” West recalled. Later, the woman’s husband wrote West to thank her for what she had done. Only then did West learn that the couple’s marriage, arranged by their parents, had been very unhappy.
“His letter said, ‘She wanted to go back to India, but then she found CE, you taught her to drive, and now I have a happy wife and a good marriage.’ Every single volunteer could tell you a story like that though, and they all say they get more blessings than they can give,” West said.
Sometimes the story includes someone choosing to follow Christ as well. Many students throughout the years have attended First, Montgomery, West said, where she and her husband serve as Sunday School teachers of a class especially for internationals. At Christmas and Thanksgiving, CE hosts holiday programs where volunteers share their faith. West said there are many other opportunities to talk about Jesus as well, including the graduation ceremony held each May.
At graduation, each student is given a Bible in his or her native language and students get an opportunity to share their experiences at CE. West said students share what is on their hearts, and often they talk about their newfound knowledge of Christianity and American life. Once a student thanked West for her Bible and said, “You have shown me that America is not like ‘Desperate Housewives.’” Another said the only time she left her house each week was when the church van came to her house. A few years ago, a Muslim woman touched the hearts of the volunteers when she shared that “while she doesn’t believe in our God, she knows He is real because she has seen Him in the faces of the volunteers, drivers, teachers and childcare teachers each Thursday.”
For many students, volunteerism is a new concept, but CE shows them what it truly means.
“Students will often say, ‘I never knew the word volunteer, but I will go back home and be a volunteer — I will do something for others with no pay,’” West said.
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