Speaking of Languages...

I have always loved languages. Even English, despite it being a kinda weird and hard-to-learn language. (At least that's what some of my friends say who speak it as their second language.) I love when I read a book by a really great writer who has the ability to say something in a certain way that I've never heard before. And you think, "Wow, I never thought of it that way!" or "What a neat way of describing that, I totally get what she's saying!" It's very captivating, very inspiring, and so creative! And I just read on and on and on.....

When I was in high school, a delightfully eccentric woman was hired on to be our French teacher. Violet Cogswell was quirky and zany and I loved her! She didn't consider herself fluent in French, but of course when I heard that beautiful language come out of her mouth I would fight to disagree! She knew so much about the people, the history, the food and the culture that you'd think she'd lived there for years! (I actually don't think she'd ever been there!) But that didn't stop her from being the most amazing teacher...

This was the first time there had been a foreign language teacher at our school that I knew of, and while French didn't seem to be a "practical" foreign language to learn in northeast Missouri, who cared!? Several of us jumped at the chance to be in her class, and I took 3 years before I graduated. I even took a couple years in college and loved it!!

So fast forward 15 years to me now living in California. This is not the land of the French, by any means, so anything I learned years ago has not proven useful here!
Except for this one patient I had about 6 years ago who was a cab driver in France, I think, and spoke four different languages. She was in her 60's and had a man's name like Toby or something, and she was absolutely fascinating! We were able to converse a little bit with her in French, but finally settled on Spanish, because more people could speak Spanish than French who were taking care of her, and she knew both languages.

ANYWAY.... My round about point was that you can't live in California without picking up SOME Spanish, and being a nurse, I often have patients who are only Spanish speaking. Also, the church that we have been ministering with for the past 3years is a Spanish-speaking church, Generacion de Josue (Joshua Generation). My exposure to the language has only increased, but my ability to speak the language hasn't really changed. I understand much of what I hear, but can't generate the right words in my head to give an intelligent response, which is often the case when learning a new language, so I'm told.

Many of the members of the church are bi-lingual, but when my husband preaches, he preaches in English and Pastor Carlos translates so that everyone is able to understand everything he says. This also is true if he's doing one-on-one ministry. I remember coming home one evening with such a personal feeling of disconnect after one incident. Pastor Carlos's wife, Sorabel, is this amazing, beautiful, delightful woman of God, who speaks very little English, and therefore our interaction has been pretty limited... "Hola Hermana Sorabel! Dios te Bendiga!!" ("Hi Sister Sorabel! God Bless You!")

We had a fellowship meal together after a recent service, and my husband and Pastor Carlos were jabbering away a million miles a minute like they always do. Sorabel's mother had become very ill (and has since passed away last week) and I wanted to comfort her, say SOMEthing to her, ANYTHING. In my broken Spanish I managed to say something like, "I know you're very sad, my mother is my best friend and I know this must be hard for you, too." It must have come out pretty bad b/c she laughed and said, "My English isn't much better than your Spanish!" She went on to say that this is why she never speaks to me, but hoped we could both work on our English and Spanish, and could speak together more. I said something about "meeting in the middle" in English and she nodded that she sort of understood.

That night on the ride home is when I started thinking about where God had put us and how blessed we were to meet these amazing people, so passionate in their love for Christ. But I literally HATED that I couldn't speak with them!!! Without of course a translator. What if God speaks a word regarding someone and no one is around to translate? I believe that God can get a message to anyone anytime anywhere, but WHAT IF He wants to use me to FACILITATE the delivery of that message??

I've always thought myself pretty good at communicating, a "people person" my mom says. I love to sit down with people and listen and share and tells stories and "get in their heads". But I haven't been able to do that truly with the very people God has placed us with. I can hear their hearts when we are worshipping together (because worship is God's universal language), but I can't hear their thoughts when we're ministering/praying together. It seems so INHUMAN almost to not have that very basic element of communicating with one another.

I shared this with my husband, and he in his ever-so-deep, philosophical and wise way, said, "Well what are you going to do about it?"

So this is what I'm doing about it: I am learning Spanish. I'm sorta doing it on my own, because our schedules don't really allow for a class at the junior college right now, though that is on my radar for this fall. I have several books to learn from, and my dear friends at work have offered to help by conversing with me only in Spanish when we have time to do so. (NOT in the middle of a code situation or other crisis, but maybe over lunch...) I had ordered a Medical Spanish course several years ago when we first moved here. Sadly it's so old that it came with cassette tapes! The information is still good, and it will help me with the conversational aspect of conversing with my patients, which is as much of a point of frustration for me as not being able to talk with our church family.

I'm also thinking about Rosetta Stone. I've heard this is a very good system for learning a language quickly, and wonder if any of you have any experience with it or know of someone who does, or know of anyone who would like to sell it at a good price, or do you have any other suggestions?

The biggest obstacle for me will be to not play head games with myself about it and put all these unnecessary pressures on myself to learn it FAST and know it NOW. I'm a wee bit impatient that way. One time I actually prayed and asked God to just supernaturally implant the language in my head. I really wanted to just wake up in the morning and KNOW Spanish. He chose not to answer that prayer in the way that I had hoped, and I trust that this way will be much better for me.... :)

So, this is one of those things that is dear to my heart, and I would so appreciate your prayers for this. Making the time to devote to it, the ease with learning, the patience with myself as I learn something new, the right heart and attitude....

I was wondering this morning about how a person even has enough "brain space" to learn something like a whole knew language. Obviously there are people who know lots more than even TWO languages! I figured if I can memorized every single word of The Princess Bride, which really is a completely useless feat, then surely I can learn a new language....

Muchas gracias, amigos!! Muchas bendiciones a todos!!