Building Relationships with Students & Seeing Emerging Leaders

This is year 6 of teaching and serving in Hungary. It has gone by so quickly. This year I am primarily teaching 9th grade students. I truly enjoy teaching freshmen as they bring a lot of energy to the language classroom. Pray these students would continue to challenge themselves in their language learning and that the Lord would guide me as we build a strong classroom environment for our future.

One such example is the class in the picture. These boys are in their second year of high school (and still in grade 9 since they opted for a year of language immersion) and I had the privilege to join them on their class trip. 

Joining students on excursions outside of school is my favorite because you get to see a little bit more of who they are, and it makes working with them in the classroom even more enjoyable. We spent 2 days at a nearby camp and filled the weekend with team-building activities like a ropes course and dragon boating the Danube River. There was also plenty of time for conversation and adventuring.  

At one point, I let them take the off-road route to the grocery store. Only one student took a swim in the creek and it only took 20 minutes longer than Google Maps indicated it would, so we counted it as a win! 

It has been a blessing to watch some of these boys step up as leaders this year among the new students and they have been some of my biggest recruiters for our English Club. This week we had 8 new students join us for the first time, all first-year students! It was a blessing to watch the older students ensure the newer ones felt welcome and included. Building a safe community is one of the main goals of this club as it paves the way to gospel-focused conversations as the year goes on. I am excited to watch how the Lord uses this time with my students.