Taste of Heaven

All of our artisans are still learning English.  Most of them are currently in World Relief's ESL classes which meet at College Church. All of us Resilient Crafts founders are ESL teachers.  It's where we've recruited all of our artisans.  Friday was our end-of-year potluck and party.  I'm never sure what I'll find when I go to these parties.  I think sometimes what we teachers say is, "On Friday there's no class; it's the end-of-year party."  And what students hear is, "On Friday, there's no class," and they make a mental note not to come on Friday.  So some years have been less party-like than others.  But this was a good year--copious amounts of food, high attendance, happy students and teachers.

A moving performance of "One Little Duck"

We always start the program with music from the children's department.  It doesn't matter what country they're from, parents like to see their kids on stage, and preschoolers are always entertaining.

Note Resilent Crafts artisans Thin Mya (purple coat), Thwe Htoo (green sweater)  and Wah Koh (red sweater).

Nepali flautist

Next we had music from the Karen Burmese church choir, a solo from a Burundian student (complete with baby on her back), a few songs on the Nepali flute, and a guitar hymn from another Karen Burmese student. The music was all fantastic. It's incredible how musical styles can be so different, but each beautiful in a different way.

Burundian soloist

And the food.  Oh, the food.  Everything from Nepali spicy chow mein with saffron, briyani rice and beef from Iraq and Iran, Vietnamese and Burmese noodles with chicken, Ethiopian njera with burn-your-mouth-off stew, to the iconic 70's casserole complete with potato chips on top (who brought that?) and plenty more.  I don't teach ESL just for the food, but it certainly doesn't hurt.
After that we usually spend at least half an hour just taking pictures.  Students have brought their cameras and make full use of them.  Sometimes I feel like I should just stand still with my arm out and a smile pasted on, like a cardboard cut-out, and just let different students get their obligatory picture-with-the-teacher.  But it's fun, and there is generally a lot of laughing and joking and students taking pictures of each other that goes on at the same time.  We say our goodbyes like close relatives--and that's what it feels like after 250 plus hours of class time.

This new mother attended class up through the week of her due date.

This time of year I've noticed lots of local businesses, churches, townships modelling their own food-sampling day or potluck after Taste of Chicago.  Taste of Wheaton, Taste of Glen Ellyn, Taste of fill-in-the-blank-local-church...and so on.  Ours could be Taste of World Relief, or more ambitiously, Taste of the World.  But then we'd only be referring to the food.  Taken all together, the food, the music, the languages, cultures, and the sense of joyful communion--it really ought to be Taste of Heaven.  It's so much easier for me to imagine heaven after a day like yesterday.  So if you want to get your own glimpse of the eternal, just ask your local ESL teacher when the next party is.  I'm sure you'll be welcome.