Driving Class

I have known that God has given me a passion me to work with refugees for over a year now. Yet most of the work I do at Gateway does not relate to refugees and, even in the areas that do relate to refugees, I don't tend to work directly with refugees.... mostly my focus is on the programs and teams that work with them. So, lately I have begun to make efforts to find ways to work directly with refugees and it is amazing to see how that impacts me. Truly, after spending time interacting with folks in the refugee community I am literally giddy! It is sooo funny to see myself like that and to wonder why God wired a middle-class white girl from NY who didn't even know what a refugee was until 20 months ago to have a deep and driving passion to interact with refugees and to see their world transformed through social justice and the love of Christ. But He did and I trust his plans!

So, last night I got to participate in a driving class for refugees that a friend teaches. Don't worry, we don't get behind the wheel (and for those who've driven with this NY chick you probably are thinking I should not be giving anyone driving lessons!). It is all classroom teaching to prepare them for the permit exam. I learned two things:
1. our driving exam is stupid
2. trying to communicate English terms to someone with a limited understanding of English is actually fun if we both are humble about it

So, I had the joy of sitting between a man from Iraq and a young woman from the Congo. There I was with my English vocabulary and not a word of Arabic or Swahili under my belt. However, God blessed me, as this was my first experience in the class, that both of these folks have a fairly good understanding of English. But even so, how do you describe what a curb is to someone whose roads are dirt and without sidewalks?! Or how do you explain why... yes... here it is... the ultimate in stupid English language... why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway! That one was fun to try to explain to the very educated Iraqi man, Samah, who has a degree in electromechanical engineering. He was actually almost too smart to understand because the concept is truly stupid...park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.... what are we thinking?! And then we had to explain things like DWI and DUI as they are on the driving test. How do you explain what a crosswalk is and what a deer crossing is? Sounds like one is a lane for people and one for deer, right? How about "down pour" ... can't we just say rain? By the time we finished just reviewing the A-G driving test vocabulary words, I was really surprised that our American high school students are able to pass!!

But truly, it was such a blast. Samah and I laughed a lot as we tried to figure out how to define these English terms ... me speaking too fast and with a bit of NY still in my accent.... he relying on engineering terms that are logical to explain driving terms that really are not.

When the class was through, I headed over to watch football with my husband and some friends. It was hard at first to even focus on the game. I was just about jumping out of my seat because I was so happy. I had had such a wonderful evening. So, what is it that gets me all giddy like that? I think it is being in a room with such a variety of people... different languages, different skin tones, different life experiences, all working together, laughing, trying to understand each other, trying to teach each other... to me it is a little picture of heaven. God is so creative and I see that so clearly in multi-cultural environments... it truly is beautiful!