Meet the Team
 

 

Nancy Kever, MNA ESL Trainer
 
    We had a very average family of the post war (WWII) days; three girls and my father was a chemical engineer at Goodyear. They believed that everyone should go to church, so we did, but we weren’t really Christians.  We had a small meeting down the hill from us that had an active Sunday school so my parents sent me there on Sunday mornings.  My Sunday school teacher made it plain that I needed to believe on Jesus to wash away my sins and so I did. I was just 5.
     Young I was but I took my new faith seriously and told my closest friends they needed to believe in Jesus too. One or two did believe! My mother had Bible club in our house every Friday afternoon so my friends heard it then too.
     Time passed and I went to university to become an elementary teacher. I prayed the Lord would show me His will for my life. At Christmas of my junior year I got married now 52+ years ago. We had six children in the first ten years of our marriage. I didn’t think I would teach after all, but our Lord had a surprise for me. I went back to school and graduated in time to start teaching at the same Christian school all of our children attended just as the youngest of our kids started kindergarten. MAN was I busy!  I taught there 14 years and then the Lord had a second even bigger surprise for us. My husband took early retirement from his teaching job and we went to Prague,CZ, to teach. This is when I became an ESL teacher with no training but my elementary background.  It was wonderful.  I was in a British Christian school teaching ESL and also acquired adults outside of school who begged us both to teach them English. We were at this school three years then we came home and lived in the Boston area for three years where I taught first grade and where most of my students spoke something else at home besides English!
     After three years we heard of an American Christian start-up school in Prague. We returned to teach there ,again school by day and ESL in the evenings.  Both of us taught adults at a local trucking company for three years. The third year I was offered a job teaching kindergarten in a Czech preschool. The children didn’t speak English.  It was interesting, but so fun!  I loved those 4 and 5 year olds.  And I was able to teach them about Jesus too.  At the beginning of our fourth year there Tom had a heart attack and we came home for good. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do!!  I was able to get a job teaching pre-k in a local preschool. We moved into a lovely ranch and life settled back down, but many of my Czech friends wanted English lessons with me so I became a Skype queen. I still meet with five of them every week. Then the Lord began giving me others : four Chinese, a Thai, and eventually local Iraqi students as well.  Then I met Bruce Lyman (MNA ESL Trainer and ESL Director at Cross Point Church in Akron).  I “retired” from the preschool and asked Bruce if he could use me. He said yes very definitely.  So here we are.  I love this work and feel it is so needed.  We have a huge community of refugees in our area.  Many worship idols in their homes. They need the Lord so much and ESL is a gateway for sure.
     On August 12^th I had another surprise;  not a too happy one this time. I had a stroke and spent two weeks in the hospital, I was reminded of Nancy Booher (MNA ESL Ministries Director) saying that when you actively serve the Lord by loving the nations that God has brought to our communities, then you are painting a bullseye on your back.  The enemy will try to stop us from this important work.  But God is faithful and I am still here.  I have greatly appreciated all the prayers and support of the MNA community. I am doing well, not 100% yet but closing in on it. Praise the Lord!

In God's Timing
by Nancy Kever

     I first met S. about five years ago when she came to our church with Carl who works as a volunteer in a secular Akron ESL program. He’s not supposed to talk about God in his classes but that doesn’t keep him from talking about the Lord after and outside of class. Over time he has led a number of these students to the Lord. So, he brought S. to our monthly dinner where I was introduced to her. She began to come to these dinners, but surprisingly she also was interested in other activities like a children’s craft class which met every Thursday for a month and visiting the local nursing home with a gospel team two Sundays a month. She also began to come to our gospel meetings on Sunday evenings. It was surprising because she had very strongly made it known that she didn’t believe in God!
     For the year that S. was in our country as a visiting scholar I saw a lot of her and grew to like her very much. We prayed for her at our Wednesday prayer meetings too. At the end of the year she had definitely changed her mind about the existence of God, but what was she going to do about this?  She asked Carl if he knew anyone who would be willing to have conversation with her on Skype after she returned to her own country so that she would keep her improved level of English. This is where I became part of the story. We have been talking on Skype for the last four years. (I also talk with her husband every week and often her 6-year-old son as well.)  I have mentioned the name of the Lord whenever there was opportunity without pushing and have prayed for her and told her so.
     One evening after we had finished our Skype she says, “My mother has become a Christian.” No warning or build-up! I was surprised, to say the least, but I said ”How did this happen?” Apparently, her mother suffers from heart problems and she heard that the Christians would pray for her so she “joined”. Then S. went on to say, “But I don’t think she knows anything about the Bible so could you give me some verses that I can tell her?” Could I give her some verses to tell her mother?!! It was not a problem. I began to send her verses from the book of John and for a year we read a few at a time for her to “share”. We got about half-way through the book.
   Some time after that she said to me one evening, “My mom and I went to see ‘The Passion of Christ’.” More amazement on my part. “How was it?” I asked. “Well,” she said, “some of it I couldn’t watch.” “I know,” I said, “Christ really suffered for us.” But then she said, “I told my mom that if she was going to be a Christian she had to believe that Jesus died on the cross for her sins.” WOW. After a couple of minutes I asked her, “And do you believe it?” She thought about it for a minute or two and then said, “Yes, yes I do.”
   I would like to be able to say that she has come out for the Lord and is really openly a believer, but I can’t. She and I still Skype. We talk about being a Christian and I make it plain that I pray for her and her family especially in times of trouble. Two summers ago they came as a family to visit and spent a night with us, went to church on Sunday and were there for worship! She says there is such peace in that place! She and her husband have very good positions as professors and are part of the Communist party. This could explain her reluctance to be too overt in her belief. She told me once that you can join a church when you’ve retired and are old!  So, I’m still praying!  Please join me.

MNA ESL Trainings are 12 hours in length and are done in a Friday night and all day Saturday format.

1. How to start and maintain a fruitful ESL Ministry
2. How to teach ESL to adult Internationals including:
   1. How to place students in the proper fluency level classroom
   2. How to Lesson Plan using professionally written curriculum
   3. How to introduce new vocabulary & sentences using new vocabulary
   4. How to get the students to generate their own sentences
3. How to build authentic relationships with your students
4. How to share the Gospel both inside and outside the ESL Classroom

You do not need to speak a foreign language or be a professional teacher to be a volunteer ESL Teacher.  All you need to do is speak English and love Jesus and we can teach you the rest.  This training is interactive.   During the training you will practice the skills that you are learning,  create  two lesson plans for different fluency levels and come away excited to serve the Lord through ESL Ministry.