Amanda is a girl I came across after reading about an ESL class she was teaching in her community. She's also involved in a downtown community garden with some other students. Amanda is a full time college student, getting ready to graduate, but she wanted to share something of herself with others. She's pretty bold, I have to say.

BZ: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you from?

I'm from all over, I guess. My parents live in Kentucky, but they moved there after I came to college, so I can't really claim it. I moved about 9 times growing up, so I don't have strong roots anywhere. Right now, I guess I'm from Tennessee :)

BZ: What do you do in your "free" time?

My first reaction is to say that I don't have "free" time but I guess I technically do. I just fill it with things! If I'm not in class or at work, I'm doing homework or talking to people. People are my hobby, I guess. I also like reading, playing music, and hiking, but I don't do those things as much as I'd like :)

BZ: You're in school, right? What is your major, and how did you end up choosing that field?

I'm graduating in May. I am an English Education major with a Religion minor (certified to teach at the secondary level). I'll be student teaching next semester. People have told me I should be a teacher ever since I started school. I figured that I like to write, speak, and listen, so I should major in communications! I quickly found out that communications means a lot more than communicating. So I started praying about teaching (which, coincidentally, is a lot about communicating!) and God made it clear to me through a series of circumstances that He wanted me to make a change. I spent a year teaching English in the Czech Republic, and after that practical experience, I was hooked!

BZ: So, at what point did you decide you needed something else in your life? What prompted you to want to seek out someone who had a need?

Well I think my parents raised me to look for opportunities to help other people. But while I was an SM, my perspective on witnessing and helping others completely changed. I used to think we did it because it was our duty and "what Jesus would do." So I started off with the idea that I would witness to my students ("poor lost souls") because it was my job. But pretty soon I got to know them, grew to love them. And suddenly I wanted to witness to them because I want them to know Jesus; these are cool people and they deserve to know the truth. So now my view of ministry is a lot more about people and friendships than saving random souls.

BZ: Tell me what you decided to do and why?

I was feeling sad that I was stuck at Southern taking classes this past summer. For college students, summer is supposed to be a time when you can put classwork aside and focus on ministry. I could go to camp or sell books, but I found out that real ministry happens everywhere; it doesn't have to be a huge program or organization.

For the garden project, some of my friends told me about it and asked me to come the first week, so I did, and I've been hooked ever since. The kids there just need so much love. It's harder not to go than to go.

The ESL class was more my personal vision. I really believe that ESL classes are a great way to witness to the community. It meets a real need, and it gets community people coming to the church building. If you can have it in a church where members come to learn English as well, even better, because language classes are all about talking to each other and naturally building relationships. So if your community friends ever come to church, they'll already have friends there. I think it's such a wonderful model for evangelism! We actually stopped the class at the end of the summer though. I had been preparing the materials from scratch each week, and once school started, I just didn't have the time. And this is probably the reason why we don't have more ESL classes at our churches.

So it's my dream (maybe after I teach for a while) to put together an ESL resource kit so that people who are willing to spend a few hours a week teaching an ESL class could get by with just that, and not have to spend lots of extra hours finding and compiling material and ideas. The material could also be customized to fit Christian values also. Someday!

BZ: So, for those of us who are sitting on our tuffets, wanting to get involved in our community, how exactly did you go about getting started?

Well, you just have to start. I guess you have to have an idea and come up with a plan and figure out what to do to make the plan happen, which usually takes a few phone calls. But I think the hardest part is making the first move, when you talk to someone and actually commit to doing something. After you've committed, it'll be easier to see what needs to happen for it to actually get off the ground.

BZ: What was the hardest part? And the easiest?

With the garden, we had some challenges finding funding and working out where exactly the landlord would let us put the beds. We tried fundraising at some hardware stores with few results. It was also harder at the beginning to plan activities when we hadn't established relationships with the kids. Now that we know each other pretty well, it's easier in many respects. Last week, we just took a jump rope and it was all we needed. The whole project ended up being easier than I thought it would be. Sometimes we hesitate to start ministries because it seems daunting and timeconsuming, but they tend to be more manageable than we think.

BZ: At what point did you realize you were actually making a difference in someone's life?

It's easy at the garden - every time the kids hug you. Every week is a few more hours with a positive role model that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

At the ESL class, there was a student who I thought I could never get through too. I tried all the different ways I could think of to explain to him the difference between nouns and verbs, but he clearly wasn't getting it. In working with him, I realized that he mispelled words in Spanish as well (even with my limited Spanish I could tell). I was starting to think there was little hope for this guy. How could he learn English if he didn't even know his own language well? I was starting to reach the end of my patience when he asked me about the Bible sitting on the table. "Do you know that book?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Why?"

Well it turns out, he works with a bunch of non-Christians and his boss wanted to know what he says at lunch before he eats. So he wanted to memorize the Lord's prayer in English.

Wow, I was humbled. Here I was, frustrated that this guy couldn't get the difference between a noun and a verb (which is relatively uselless information) while my student just wants to learn English so he can witness to his boss. It was a cool moment, though, because I realized what we were doing mattered far more than grammar and vocabulary.

BZ: How did you get your friends involved? What did you do to motivate others?

Yep, it's pretty much a group of friends. I thought it would be hard to get people to go. But when you have mission-minded friends, it's not hard at all. What a blessing! I don't have a lot of free time, and it's nice to be able to spend time with friends and do ministry at the same time.

BZ: On a personal note, what would you do with 48 hours if you could do anything you wanted?

I would get two solid nights of sleep, spend some time with my family, go outside, read, catch up on emails, sing, take a hike, cook something tasty and healthy. I've been a bit of a workaholic the past two weeks, and if I had free time, I think I would use it to balance out my life again :)

BZ: What's your favorite Bible verse?

Right now it's a tie between Lamentations 3:21-26 and John 16:33

BZ: Since you're going to graduate soon, what are your plans for the next 5 years of your life?

Oh what a wonderful question. If only I knew the answer! I want to teach. However, the possibilities within that job description are endless. I'd like to go back to another country and teach ESL. (But I'd also like to get married, which makes me wonder if I should hold out on that dream for a little while? No prospects yet!) I also would be happy teaching at an academy in America. Or I might get my masters in ESL. Or I could teach ESL in America somewhere. Right now I'm just praying and pursuing all those options as much as possible. I know God can open one door and close the rest, but at this point, I'm not sure where I'll be. The idea of planning 5 years in the future is kind of funny anyway - it's my experience that life doesn't go as planned, and it's better to submit than plan. But I guess we always have dreams and ideas for the future, and I think that's healthy.

Amanda, it's been great chatting with you! Thanks for your time. Looking forward to hearing more from you!

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