I want to learn English
Living in I moved to Singapore, my mind was opened widely. The country was a culturally diverse population. It was mixed up with the eastern and western cultures. Its official languages were English, Chinese, and others. The first impression of the country gave me was that there were a lot of churches. The buildings were beautiful and fantastic. People had a direct relationship with various religions.
One day, when I shopped in a supermarket, I found two western men dressed the black formal suites. They distributed the Bible to shoppers. I got one in the English version. Back home, I started to read the Bible. No matter how serious I was, it was too hard to understand the story. I had to left the book on my bookshelf as a souvenir. The Bible was translated into English. I thought it might be because my English was too poor to understand it. I decided to learn English. Almost all churches provided free English classes for the public. I picked up one church and enrolled in an English class there.
Lillian - Just at that time, I made my first Singaporean friend, Lillian. She was a kind of thinking positive person and would like to look at the sunny side of things. I was able to see she smiled all the time. That smile made me feel comfortable. She had been in the US for ten years and attended a church for Sunday worship and Bible study. In that church, she got to know three American girls. After coming back to Singapore, she served as a church leader and also the English class manager. She invited her friends, those three American girls, taught the class. They were Christians and had a missionary in Singapore. We soon got familiar with three girls. We chatted about their Christian lifestyle and asked a lot of questions about their purposes to travel overseas. They told me it was their mission to preach the gospel. I asked them what was "gospel." They said the gospel is the record of Jesus' life and teaching in the first four books of the New Testament. That was the second time I heard "gospel." However, they didn't take the opportunity to share the gospel with me because they left Singapore and went back to the US.
Meian - I told Lillian I wanted to continue to learn English. She helped me found another class held by another church. The teacher, Meian, was a beautiful Singaporean lady. She worked as a part-time teacher in that church. I told her that I wanted to learn English. She said, "yes" but the textbook would be Bible. She was so real and would like to share her stories with me. Even though I joined the class shortly, we got to know
each other quickly. Following Meian, I started to learn Matthew, which was the book of the New Testament. I read a paragraph, and she corrected my pronunciations. I had a feeling that even though I didn't have any unknown words, I was still not able to find a clue what the book told me. I realized it was not a language barrier to understand the Bible. The problem was I didn't have any knowledge of the background. Meian was very patient, and she did a lot of explanation. She also brought me to watch a move about Jesus' life.
After one year, I had improved not only my English but also heard some classic Bible stories. One day, Meian asked me if I would like to have a Christian name. I answered her, "yes." She gave me a name called Esther, which came from the Old Testament. She also asked me if I would like to accept Jesus as my Savior. I didn't say "yes" Because I still confused about why I needed a Savior and what was wrong with me. I told her that I just a normal person and need to improve myself and to be better than I was before. She encouraged me to be patient, and some things took time, even with God's help. I knew I still had a long way to go, but I was already so far from I used to be. I was proud of that.
