Karen Peiser, Dora Parnell, Carol Coburn, Lester Meriwether, Martha McDade

TEX (Teaching English with Excellence) trainers met in Fort Worth last weekend to discuss their upcoming fall trainings and how best to offer support, resources, and mentoring to ESL programs around the state. Much discussion centered on filling the shoes of our greatly missed ESL Coordinator and Ministry Consultant, Robin Feistel, who led the charge from 2004 to 2014.

To the observer, one thing was perfectly clear: these TEX trainers have an absolute sense of mission. They are changing the world, one international student at a time.

Take a peek into Martha McDade's Advanced ESL class in Houston:

I teach an ESL Advanced Class Wednesday mornings at Second Baptist Church. We have two hours of class time, including thirty minutes of Bible study. My class, made up of students from 13 countries, includes Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and more.  

In mid-January, a new student enrolled in our class. Deepak, a 35 year old Hindu from Nepal, showed surprising interest in the Bible stories we studied. He continually asked many questions, never challenging but serious and penetrating inquiries, often monopolizing student discussion. Rather than distractive, his searching interest often inspired further conversations among the other students.

After class one day, another student asked, "Deepak isn't a Christian, is he?" After I agreed with her, she said, "We need to pray for him."

On April 1, we took all of the students through the Passion Week set up for Easter. It was a full size visual depiction of Christ's final hours, and made a lasting impression on everyone. The final stop was a huge cross where everyone was invited to write their sins on black paper and nail them to the cross. Deepak stopped at the cross, nailed a paper, turned to my co-teacher, and asked how he could be baptized.

What an answer to my prayers and the prayers of some of his classmates. 

Every week during the school year, 15,000 students, like Deepak, are being taught and ministered to through church-based ESL programs.