Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 August 2005 18:54:00
After the other Brits left me in Romania at the end of March 1994, jobless and feeling very alone and far from home, I took my hosts' dog Inez (a gorgeous cocker spaniel, daft as a brush) for a long walk and then I sat down in the town centre with the dog at my feet and started to pray. Along the lines of "what the hell is going on, what am I doing here, what's the point, what's it all about, where are you?" kind of thing. When I got back, I. and L. (my hosts) said that they wanted to introduce me to the daughter of the lady who lived in the apartment below ours. This daughter turned out to be an English teacher in a local school, who also taught evening English classes at a language school run by the Hungarian Reformed Church. She was, however, quite ill and waiting for an operation, and had decided that she was no longer able to teach the evening classes. I'll never forget her words: "When I heard you were here, I thought Christ had sent you". She asked if I wanted to teach her evening classes, and we arranged to meet the manager of the school later that evening. When we met he told me that as well as A's class, he had another teacher off sick that term whose classes I could take, and would I like to do an extra conversation class as well, as he'd be happy to advertise for students just for that term. The whole thing left me ashamed at my lack of faith, but grateful to God for his provision in my (and their) need.
So for the next 3 months that's what I did. I soon learnt that whatever my calling to Romania and eastern Europe might be, English teaching wasn't part of it. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it, it's just that I really wasn't that good at it, and I knew it. I wasn't terrible, but I hated not being brilliant at it, so although I enjoyed being in the country and being part of a totally different culture, I knew that teaching wasn't for me. I came home 4 months later, still not having a clue what might be "the thing" for me to do, though I had started thinking about nurse training by that point. I returned to London, went back to voluntary sector temping, and at the end of the year thought/prayed "well - was that it?" No reply.