Teaching

It's Sunday morning in Tamale. The day has dawned cloudy but cool. The birds are singing outside my window and I can hear the thump-thump of drums coming from a nearby church. The congregation there is a singing a chorus called "Naawuni Vela," which means "God is so good." I just love the enthusiastic, full-voiced singing of Ghanaian believers.

My plan for today is to work on my lesson plans some and then go practice riding my motorbike this afternoon. I'm sure the villagers will enjoy watching me stall the bike out in the huge potholes in the road outside the compound again today. I noticed the crowds on the front porches along the road growing yesterday each time I drove down the road. My Dagbani is still not so good, but I'm pretty sure what they were saying so animatedly as they pointed at me was, "Look, here comes that crazy man on the motorbike again ha ha ha!"

I start teaching on Tuesday. I'm excited about that because it's the reason I came, but it has really been a struggle for me preparing to teach. I'm struggling because a) I've never taught school before, and b) I'm concerned about the cultural differences I'm going to encounter in the ways the students are used to being taught. The seminary gave me total freedom as to how I want to structure and teach my two classes (Christian Ethics and Christian Family Life), which I appreciate, but the perfectionist in me is really in full bloom on this one. What I chose to do was go online and look at syllabi different seminary professors published for their classes. Studying these I found a few books that kept coming up repeatedly, so I purchased those books, used, from Amazon. Since then I've been reading the books, mentally arranging the material as to how I would teach it. Honestly, I think I'll feel a whole lot better after meeting my (hopefully) eager students on Tuesday and getting started (like finally taking that first hit of the football season for those of you who might understand that).

I hope you enjoy your Sunday; use it as a day to remember how much God loves you, and give your family a hug. I'll meet you here again tomorrow.

P.S. I have had numerous requests for a photo of my hot new motorbike. I'll get one up soon; uploading photos here is a major ordeal, but I'll do it shortly.