Friends,

For the next several weeks, I want to use this space in the newsletter to let you know the ways in which the Presbyterian Church of Lake Travis and our members have been engaged in our larger community. While the pandemic has kept us from gathering together for worship and other large-group activities, it has not kept us from being faithful followers of Jesus, loving our neighbors and living our faith!

Today’s update comes from Pam McGovney. You may remember that last year before the pandemic, Pam was teaching conversational English to a group of residents at the Armadillo RV Park in Hudson Bend. She met with them twice a week in the evenings. So many were attending that Pam recruited several other PCLT members to assist with the classes. When the pandemic hit in March, 2020, Pam learned how to offer her classes using Zoom and her students would access it using their phones. Those classes have continued all throughout the year-long pandemic. This past week, Pam shared with me an update on the conversational English program:

I still have my two students on Zoom. They are doing so well. We are using verbs in the present, past, and future tenses, and I’m going to start with them reading on the second grade level. I found out how to get books online from the library. I have a new student that I meet with at the library outside. She has been in the States 30 years and speaks pretty well, but she isn’t up with my other students and has trouble with the internet. We are meeting today again; so that I can give her a notebook, and we can work out how to use Google Duo so that I can teach her online through her phone. One of my students also told me that another lady she works with wants to start lessons. 

Each time we meet, we still read the Lord’s Prayer only in English now. Each lady has written two dreams they have, and they have written two plans or goals for achieving that dream. Recently we added a third dream. They seem so proud of themselves and what they have achieved in speaking English. They are more and more taking their lives into their own hands. Of course, they were strong intelligent women already, but I’m just a help along the way to their dreams.

Thank you, Pam, for all of your passion and energy offered to help others along the way to their dreams. And thank you for being the face of PCLT for the women you teach.

Peace,

Pastor Jack