New Language Classes

Nicaragua Christian Academy took a big step forward this year with two new foreign language elective classes. Despite being an already bilingual school (with all classes in English and daily Spanish classes for all students), for years we have desired to provide opportunities for our students to further develop their language abilities.

This year we began by offering semester-long elective classes in Korean and Portuguese. Korean was taught during the first semester. Students who signed up for the class learned basic Korean alphabet and vocabulary, as well as several different aspects of Korean culture – food, music and traditional art.

With the exception of new arrivals to Nicaragua who are still learning Spanish, most of our students are fluent in both English and Spanish. Over 10% of our students are Asian and also speak either Korean or Mandarin. And several of our students have already learned other languages (mostly French and Italian) outside of school.

Teacher Recruiting Update

Sometimes people ask me (Liam), what exactly does a school director do? This is a question that is usually hard to answer because my job carries so many different responsibilities, but it’s safe to say that one of my most important responsibilities is recruiting teachers to fill our vacancies each year. Like most international schools, every year we have a number of openings to fill. For a school in its early years, it is often difficult to make contact with potential teachers that are both qualified and interested in moving to a country like Nicaragua to teach. I can remember two times in the past 12 years when we have started the school year at NCA without having all of our teaching staff in place, and a few more times when we have still been looking for one or more teachers with less than 4 weeks before the first day of school. Obviously these are very stressful conditions.

Fortunately, things seem to be improving in the area of teacher recruiting. We had six openings this year and all of them were filled by qualified teachers by the beginning of March. Among the six teacher we have hired is our fourth “return” teacher (taught at NCA in the past, moved back to the States, and now is returning to NCA) and our second “NCA alum” teacher (graduated from NCA, went to college and got a degree in teaching, and came back to NCA).

As always, we’re so thankful for your prayers for Nicaragua Christian Academy and grateful that God has once again provides for our needs as a school.

Check out our new Teacher Recruiting video at http://youtu.be/yU8TnKCXGHo!

Summer is Here!

Although we’ve heard rumors of early summer weather in Michigan this year, usually at this time winter is still hanging around for many of you living in the United States and Canada. In Nicaragua, however, the advertisements for summer sales and summer vacation specials start to appear in February. The months of February and March get progressively warmer until April, when we’re all sweltering and dreaming of air conditioning. The days continue to get hotter and more humid until part way through May when “Winter” (the rainy season) finally comes to Nicaragua with the first big rainfall.

So how do we know it is summer in Nicaragua, when it’s rarely below 80° year round? Here are a few ways:

1. The pool vendors set up shop in various locations alongside the roads, selling inflatable pools and floaties.
2. The road out of Managua, which is also the road to our home, is full of beach-bound traffic every Saturday and Sunday morning. It is not uncommon to see twenty people crammed into the back of a pickup truck, some sitting on plastic chairs, many times packed to the gills with mattresses and bags overflowing as everyone escapes to the Pacific.
3. For those who don’t have cars, neighborhoods sometimes organize trips to the beach for a day in the big yellow school buses that are used for public transportation.
4. Our grass is finally completely dead.
5. We start looking forward to Semana Santa, or Holy Week, when we, too, will head to the beach for the CRC retreat. Each year we get to spend about four days with many of CRWM and CRWRC’s missionaries from Central America, including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. It’s exciting to hear what God is doing across Central America through different ministries in the Christian Reformed Church, and we have enjoyed getting to know the many families that join us each year for this retreat.

Sometimes we do miss the seasons of the Northern U.S., but if we had to choose one of them, we’re glad we get summer year round. Even Belen has been out in the pool in her Hawaiian swimsuit nearly every day this week, enjoying the sunshine and the kiddie pool with her big brothers.