Joe ‘Pepe’ Miller is a missionary serving in the Peruvian jungle community. After completing 3 Christian TEFL courses, he joined LatinHire to teach English online.

Joe kindly agreed to share his experiences, his motivation for online English teaching and how he believes mission and English teaching can be ideal companions.

Hello Joe, can you tell where you are and what you are doing?

I’m a missionary with Youth With a Mission out of the United States.  My wife, two daughters and I serve in small community called Tingo Maria located in a jungle plateau within the Andes Mountains’ chain.  We’ve been in this location for about three years and in Peru for almost eleven.  We assist the churches in various ways: in re-discovering who we are as God’s people living in the 20th century, sharing the Gospel in a fresh and powerful way, establishing biblical methods for creating home churches and the discipleship of new believers in a way that releases our true identity in Christ.

What steps led up to you teaching English?

As our ministry desires have grown and our family, too, our financial needs have increased.  As U.S. missionaries with Y.W.A.M., we are responsible for raising our own financial support.  From the beginning, my wife and I have been looking for ways to both support our ministry and family while not additionally burdening the church, family or supporters. It was my wife who suggested we include teaching English as a part of our plan.

So, I interviewed a couple of TEFL course providers and without hesitancy, after speaking with William, I decided on Christian TEFL to complete my 120-hour certification and then additionally the Advanced English and Online Teaching courses which are available.

I can say with absolute certainty that I’m glad I took all three and did it through you folks!

It was in Louisa’s Online English teaching class that I realized I could perfect my skills as an online teacher while working for someone else, in essence paid training.  So, I applied to join LatinHire and got the job!

Can you explain a little about LatinHire?

The resources for finding work via Christian TEFL and Global-English led me ultimately to the landing page for LatinHire.  LatinHire is basically the HR department for OpenEnglish (adults) and OpenEnglish Jr. (8 to 14) for all of Latin America. I instinctively wanted to focus my newly developed skills to help those that on a spiritual level I had already adopted as my extended family.

Latin Hire / OpenEnglish looks for TEFL certified teachers who can teach English online and have some second language background in Spanish. I teach ages 8 to 14.  Classes are 25 minutes in length with an additional 5 minutes provided to complete a brief report on each lesson.  Shifts are two hours in length and within each shift you can teach a mix of 1-1 and groups of up to 5 students.

They use Zoom and all materials are provided. With different levels in the group and quick turn-arounds, it can be a little stressful at the start but they offer additional support.

How does teaching English online work with evangelism?

For me teaching and evangelism go hand in hand, especially in light of what James says about faith being something that is demonstrated on a variety of levels.  We provide opportunities so people can improve their lives and free themselves from economic bondage while assisting them with their liberation from spiritual bondage; they go hand in hand!

It is also like Paul’s tent making efforts – an economical benefit which provided opportunities for him to share his faith, all the while allowing the light of Christ to shine in places where it may not have had an opportunity to do so.

Take the training, get certified – Go Be the Light and teach English!

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Thanks for sharing your story, Joe. It’s an inspirational read.

Every blessing for the future as you combine English teaching and mission.

if you would like to know more about LatinHire, visit their website here >>