Grateful for the Gift of Service!

After the first week of teaching, I have familiarized myself with the living environment and working rhythm. A typical day would consist of the following: getting up at 6:30,  go for a short jog around the lake to kickstart the day; washing up and get dressed; have breakfast with fellow volunteers; cram into a taxi and weave through Hanoi’s dense traffic; greet our hyper student in every class; have lunch at the school and kill time while students take their mid-day naps； teach with more struggle class by class in the afternoon; say goodbye to the kids and return to the hotel by taxi. Then we take our very released rest and expect the most enjoyable activity of the day.

When I was trying to pull together all these words on my journal, I happened to cast my sight over the flowers sitting on my bed table, suddenly I feel something different. How generous and sweet our students are!  On Teacher’s Day , they bought us many flowers and they took pictures with us like we were celebrities, even though that we have been teaching them only for one week. They rush to us all the way from the other end of the hall to say “hello” “how are you?”. Many students approach me during breaks to ask me about something of myself that I didn’t cover in my introduction. Some students grasp every opportunity to speak English with foreign volunteer teachers in hope of learning something new.

Rosy Xu teaching at Foreign Trade University in Hanoi.

I began to really realize this volunteer program is much bigger than helping to teach  these kids some English, but also to build life-changing relationships for them and myself. As I interact with them and exchange some idea and information, I see a little bit of my son in each of them, giving me the feeling of a home away from home.

I’m grateful for this opportunity.  Rosy