Enriching the linguistic, cultural, social, and spiritual development of our students is the main objective for which we have partnered with students from Grand Rapids Christian Immersion School. To learn a little more about it, we spoke with the participating teachers, who expanded us on the benefits, activities and scope of the project.

“The main objective is a mutual meeting where the students of the 2 schools can benefit. For our students, to use their Spanish and learn more about the Honduran culture and for Jubilee students to practice their English and learn about the customs in the United States. For them we develop activities such as pen pals, zoom calls, videos, among others.” shares Vanessa Abreu, Coordinator of the Spanish Immersion program at GRCS.

Emily Romero, Jubilee’s co-Director shared how this initiative began. “The project came about through a friend and person who supports the ministry. She is a parent at GRCS and she thought it could be a great opportunity for both her sons and all the children from both schools.

Through Zoom, they play directed games together, they divide into small groups and do a variety of activities, presentations of various topics so that they learn new things about the country and the culture of each school. “

The program began in May of 2021 with two different sets of classrooms, now four classes, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades at Jubile are participating. At GRCS their 1st grade class with Mrs. VanBeek, a 3rd grade class with Mrs. Triminio, a 4th grade class with Mrs. DeMoor, and 6th graders with Mrs. Richline.   In future, we hope to continue to involve other classes and teachers as the partnership grows.

“Like my students, I feel happy to meet new friends from a different culture and form a bond of friendship between both cultures. I really like this experience because it helps us meet new people and share experiences about life, culture, education, and childhood,” shares Karol Soto, Second Grade teacher at Jubilee.

“As a fifth grade teacher, I feel blessed to have the opportunity to meet other teachers and that my students can interact with other children. One of the lessons that I have learned is that as children of God there is no dividing wall that prevents us from being together. All the students from the US and Honduras share the most important thing: the love of God and His Word.”  Kelin Flores, Fifth Grade teacher at Jubilee.

“We are excited about the privilege of meeting new friends and helping them practice the Spanish language. I hope that these friendships will be preserved over time. This activity awakens the interest of children to learn about other countries” Shery Cerna, Third Grade Teacher, CJI

“I feel very happy to participate in this initiative! One of my expectations is that the students have a wonderful experience of knowing that there are children like them in another place in the world who study, learn, and above all learn from the Word of the Lord from a young age. May this experience be treasured in their heart. ” Guadalupe García, Fourth Grade teacher, CJI.

The classroom partnerships takes place during the months of September and October and they meet once every 1 or 2 weeks depending on the plan of each teacher. In the future, we will continue during the months of February through May becuase only in these months do the school schedules overlap, due to our different months of “summer” vacation.

“I want to emphasize that in addition to the topics and activities that I already mentioned, one of the priorities is prayer, because without a doubt it is the root of everything we do as Christian schools.” Vanessa Abreu (GRCS Immersion Coordinator).

Emily Romero, expounds more about the Spiritual aspect of the partnership. “We want the teachers to instill in their children the importance of praying for each other and if there are special needs also to have the freedom to share them between the groups. We also want them to see that there are different ways and styles of praising God, and that, through this interactive partnership the students can experience the faith and love for God as it manifests itself in different cultures.

Finally, Mrs. Romero shared that “We hope that one day, perhaps in the not too distant future, a group of students and teachers from GRCS may come to visit us at Jubilee, and why not dream that one day some of our students could also go visit GRCS for a little while. “