My husband is a teacher. Not by profession only, but by personality. Teacher is who he is. Teaching is his gift. If you’ve heard him speak or teach, you know this to be true. When we felt the pull to come serve in Asia, we knew that we would come as teachers.

However when we arrived in China and began teaching, Aaron found that teaching oral English in a formal Chinese classroom setting was quite different than the kind of teaching that he had always loved. He did it without complaining, but I could tell that teaching students the difference between the pronouns “he” and “she” was not exactly the kind of thing that got him excited to step foot in the classroom. But he faithfully planned and taught his basic oral English lessons throughout all of last year.

This year has been different though. This year he is teaching much different classes. His students now are much more advanced in their English ability. He has an Audio/Visual class in which he teaches cinematic analysis and Western culture through movies. I can think of no one in the world that would be better at teaching this class than my husband. Because, you see, my husband is an analyzer. That’s who he is. It’s his gift. Whatever it is - movies, songs, sermons, situations, or cultures, he will analyze it. And in doing so, he draws out the deeper issues, the heart of the matter. He catches things that your average person (myself included) never considers.

As his wife, I am continually benefiting from the insight my husband brings me. And now, his students are benefiting from it as well. He recently showed the movie “Pursuit of Happyness” and helped the students to understand the American Dream and its foundation with in the roots of American society, stemming from the Declaration of Independence itself. He showed them the cultural differences of individualism vs. collectivism and how that is played out within American and Chinese society. His students are fascinated by this. He’s helping them to understand themselves and the world in ways they’ve never considered.

He is also teaching an advanced writing class. This is perfect for him too, because, you see, my husband is a writer. It’s who he is. It’s his gift. In high school, he won all kinds of awards for journalism. When he took the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) he received the highest possible score for the writing portion. He’d be embarrassed if he knew I was writing all this about him, but I’m just extremely proud of my husband. It has been such a joy this semester to see how excited he gets about lesson planning. He’s constantly bouncing different ideas off of me, asking me if the students will understand this or that. He comes back from class full of stories about how the students reacted, the questions they asked, and the discussions they had.

This is the kind of teaching that makes him come alive. He’s using his gifts. He’s being the amazing teacher he was made to be. And this makes me smile. I think it makes Someone else smile too.