Rachel Sabre, a new French teacher, has been teaching for 20 years. She went to college to become an elementary teacher. However, her plans changed a bit when she decided to do a mission for her church during her junior year in college. Sabre was sent to Belgium, a French speaking country, for 18 months.

     “I did not take French in high school, I took Spanish. I took two years of Spanish and didn’t want to take French,” Sabre said. “When the time came for me to leave, I took an eight week training course about how to do this work I had signed up for, as well as learn the language.”

     During the first couple of months, Sabre refused to speak, as she was too scared and wasn’t very comfortable with the language. Then, a certain phone call changed her perspective on the matter.

     “I came into my apartment and the phone rang, and just out of reflex, I answered it. Because that’s what you do when the phone rings, you answer it. But up until now, I had avoided it. I had made everyone else I knew answer the phone.” Sabre said. “So anyways, I got stuck in this phone conversation and I managed to get through it just fine. I thought ‘Oh my gosh, I might be able to do this.’ and so the next day, I told myself ‘Well you gotta do something here.”

     Sabre did exactly that. The next day, on the bus, she decided to take a risk and talk to someone. After much deliberation, she settled on the bus driver.

     “I kind of worked my way to the front of the bus and I’m standing behind the bus driver and I’m just kind of watching, working up my nerve to say something,” Sabre said. “Then finally, he noticed me standing behind him in the rear view mirror and said ‘Bonjour’, and I said ‘Bonjour’ back.”  

     Sabre then worked up the nerve to start a conversation.

     “I said ‘Il pleure’ which is a phrase in French which means ‘he’s crying’ but I thought it meant ‘it’s raining’. So he looked at me with a funny look on his face and he goes ‘American?’, I said ‘mhm,” Sabre said. “He waved his finger like French people do he says ‘Mademoiselle, Il pleure’ and then faked cried, made this really obnoxious cry, and I went ‘oh’ and then he pointed outside and touched the window of the bus where it was raining and said ‘Il pleut’ and showed me the difference.”

     Sabre soon made a friend through this embarrassing encounter and was able to practice this unfamiliar language.

     “He drove the same route all the time and so every day he would see me and if I was running late, he would wait.” Sabre said. “If it was raining, he would stop wherever I was. If it was late at night and there wasn’t too many people on the bus, he would go pass my bus stop and drop me off closer to my apartment and so I just knew I had a friend, someone I could talk to.”

     Not only did Sabre acquire a new language but also met her husband during her time on the mission. When Sabre went back to college, she decided to change her plans and become a French teacher.

     “I didn’t want to be one of a million elementary teachers, there’s always way more elementary teachers than there are in secondary education.” Sabre said.