Jennifer’s smile (05-November-2018)
Jennifer’s smile is one of the joys of teaching the July-December 2018 Evangeline Class. She is always ready to learn with delight.
Her face is aglow with the joy she feels at doing something she was desperate to do. “I couldn’t wait to get computer skills,” Jennifer says. She had never heard about Evangeline until her friend’s mom told her about us.
One of the five students we eagerly welcomed from the nearby Cape Town colored community of Ocean View, we are pleased to be part of the intentional bringing together of groups that, in a post-apartheid legacy, can be not only far apart, but sometimes, hostile to each other. In our classroom they get along very well and appreciate each other’s language and culture.
While Jennifer has had some entry level employment, she was forced to quit her job when her mother became seriously ill and then because of her death when she had to care for her siblings. She earns some income as a baby sitter for two children but she wants to do so much more with her life. She says: “I want to learn to sew not only to help others but to create my own styles. I want to see people wear my clothes.”
“I enjoy everything and I am learning a lot,” she says but she is especially thrilled with the Bible lesson. “Now I understand the Bible more, I can go home and read it to my daughter,” she says. “Before I just did not understand any of it.”
With twenty- two others, Jennifer will graduate on Saturday December 1 and be awarded her computer certificate and her new sewing machine.