In the process of catching up with folks back home, usually within the first couple minutes of conversation I get this, “So how’s the Portuguese coming?” While I get tired of hearing this – mostly because this is my life right now and since I am learning, I wind up talking about this with almost EVERBODY, all the time – I understand that it is a pertinent question for somebody who moved to a country whose official language is not English but Portuguese.
When I say that this is my life, I mean that this is my only “job” right now. Since we all know that conversing is the primary form of communication in most any social setting, then we all understand the importance of language learning. Of course in the mean time, it’s amazing what you can accomplish with a limited vocabulary and a little impromptu sign language!
Using a multipronged attack strategy, I seem to be learning quickly. At least this is what I’m told by people as I attempt to converse with them. Usually I get a comment like “Really?! You’ve only been here two months?” So praise God for this! I owe it all to him. I think back of my time in high school where I spend three years in Spanish and never could speak a lick…
My days consist of about 4-5 hours of study – 2 with a tutor, 1 with the father of my host family in conversational language, and then 1-2 alone studying. I also spend time watching movies in Portuguese and listening to Brazilian music. One area of learning that I’m really enjoying now is being able to go to church activities and sit under the teaching there. This provides several hours per week of active listening to spoken Portuguese. The exciting part is that every session I can pick up a bit more! Seeing progress is such a boost! Lastly is time spent with friends here. As a group, everybody speaks Portuguese, so when I’m socializing with them and just having fun in the evenings, I’m soaked in exposure to the language.
I just had one of the missionaries make a comment to me last night about the number of missionaries who did not take the proper time to learn the language in the first year on the field and then five years down the road, loaded with ministry responsibilities, were wishing that they had time to study the language more. The moral of this is that I really need to dedicate as much time as possible to learning to speak, read, and write Portuguese so that I will be able to communicate at an appropriate level in the future.
I understand the importance of this and my hearts desire is to be able to communicate in this language at a level that brings glory to God. This is what motivates me day after day to keep involved and pursuing an active learning role. It’s all for His glory. I know that is the ultimate outcome of this segment of preparation for life on the field.
It’s easy to put this in context of the Tower of Babel and look at all the negative aspects of how language differences have caused barriers for the Gospel and the modern missions movement. (Note here that language is not capable of stopping God from fulfilling his promise for global missions. After all, he created languages and he created missions.) Then when I put this in the context of Revelations 4 and 5, I realize how actually the idea of multiple tribes, languages, peoples, and nations brings more glory to God…how awesome it will be to hear myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And then to hear every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And then to see the four living creatures say, “Amen!” and finally the elders fall down and worship! (See Rev 4-5) There’s going to be a lot of different people there for this party!
So in the mean time I”ll be eating up as much Pork ‘n Cheese as possible…
JAE
No comments:
Post a Comment