Giving thanks in All Circumstance—Even Language Learning

Thanksgiving meal with team!

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?  We hope so.  We certainly did.  We didn’t have turkey, but a couple of whole chickens where quite delicious and we had most of the fixin’s—stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans and mashed potatoes.  We even had pumpkin pie and whipped cream for desert!  Not bad for a tropical island off the coast of Africa!

But Thanksgiving isn’t only about the food.  This is a time when we take a moment and think of all the things we are thankful for throughout the past year and even beyond.  This Thanksgiving was special since we have just welcomed our new teammates and had the chance to celebrate with them as well as our older teammates too.  It got me to thinking about the things that we tend to forget to be thankful for.

A big part of orientation for our new teammates—the biggest part in fact, is language learning.  This is a daunting task.  Many people come to it with trepidation and fear.  For many, it is the most difficult part of living in another country.  I myself didn’t like it very much.  It was really hard and humbling and embarrassing and painfully slow to see progress.  There is certainly still a part of me that wishes language learning could be done via download — just stick the USB drive into the side of my head and viola—I speak French!  But looking back at my own life and looking ahead at the lives of my teammates I start to appreciate the hard lessons of language learning.  Now I am even thankful for it!

Thanksgiving afternoon hike

I am thankful for language learning because it tears down before it builds up.  As adults we get pretty comfortable with ourselves.  Whether we say so or not, we all intuitively think we have things pretty put together, we know how to handle ourselves, we can get around, we know more or less who we are, what we’re good at, and what we want.  Language learning tears all that down.  It strips us down to the basics and makes us start again.  Want to discover if you have pride, shame or complacency in your life—become a language learner.  I would say that language learning has been the greatest vehicle for keeping a check on my pride—and for that I am thankful.

In a similar vein, I am thankful for how language learning is such a great tool for growing in maturity in general.  I think of teammates both present and past and see how much language learning has revealed areas where they need to grow and helping them to grow in those areas.  Personally, I have learned a great deal about depending on others, finding counsel from many advisors, and trusting that time put in will eventually have results.  All these lessons are applicable to many areas of life and have made me a better teammate, a better husband, a better parent, and I have learned these lessons best from language learning.  And so I am thankful.

Language learning has also opened new ways of thinking and seeing.  I do not see the world in the same way as I did before, for now I can see it from another perspective.  I can even think about it and talk about it differently as the words of the island language give things a different spin, a different angle.  The very words we use cause us to think differently.  When I read the words of God, my mind perceives them differently, all because of language and culture learning.  What a gift this is!   But it would not come about without the hard work of living and learning in another language.  And for that I’m thankful.

Lychee season has begun! Our first lychees of the season.

It’s easy to be thankful for things we have, even things we have achieved.  But how often are we thankful for the hard journey of getting there?  My son has been learning to read and it has not come easily to him.  He has worked hard.  He is starting to enjoy it and maybe one day he will be thankful for reading.  He may forget the journey, but I can look back at the hard work we put in together.  And that’s the final thing I’m thankful for.  On these hard journeys, we are never alone.  And the time spent together, even as we struggle, is special.  We struggle and fall and fail and complain, but we are lifted up and encouraged and we try again.  Let’s be thankful for the journey together.

PRAYERS ANSWERED

We had a great week of orientation with our new teammates including a day off on Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving.  They continue to do really well and we are greatly encouraged by their excellent attitudes.  It seems like they are sleeping better too, so thanks for praying!  We are so thankful for our team which seems to be gelling well and especially our older teammates who have shared the responsibilities for welcoming our new teammates and have been a great help.  We are so blessed to work with such wonderful people.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Language learning never stops!  Please pray for all of us, that we may progress and grow and enjoy the journey.  Pray especially for our newer teammates who feel most acutely the difficulties of the journey.  Our new teammates have started a week-long stay in a village at the center of the island with a local island family. This will be a hard week but a great chance to learn about island culture. Pray that they would have good attitudes in the hard moments and that this week would be the beginning on special relationships with islanders. We have visitors coming this week from Asia.  Pray that they will have safe travels and be inspired by what they see and hear in order to bring back to their home countries a fire for the great needs of our islands.  Next week will also begin a two week translation workshop.  Pray that this journey will also be a source of blessing and growth.  Continue to lift up Ma Imani and her daughters.  We have no new word on her daughters progress yet. Advent starts next Sunday—pray that this season will give us many opportunities to share about the one who walks with us on the greatest journey.