Our Stateside Language Place

“I know your brains are full, but what about your hearts?” our instructor asked as he sent us out of class to have fifteen minutes with our Savior right in the middle of a language training day.  More than the curriculum, what I will take away from the two weeks of phonetics training is having A PLACE. A place to worship, a place to rest, a place to prepare for Africa, a place to remember our call is not to missions, but to Christ. 

As soon as we arrived, we started shedding layers of exhaustion.  Because the kids travel so well, I hadn’t realized how deeply the rootlessness was affecting them.  Titus’ unbridled enthusiasm at having HIS OWN bed for the WHOLE four weeks caught me by surprise.  He’s right, though.  It’s been a long time since he had a real bed that he didn’t have to share with his brother.  Emily’s reaction of, “It’s a dream come true!” was to having a closet and drawers in which to put her clothes.  Clearly, they became “missionary kids” long before leaving the country.

The children’s program here is phenomenal.  For six hours a day, all three are in their classes learning language skills and also processing growing up in a foreign country.  The teachers are giving the kids words to express their paradoxical childhoods and, best of all, it’s normal here.  The first day Emily said one kid in her class described his family as “crazy” because they’d sold their house and all of their stuff and were driving around the country preparing to move to Africa.  “That’s not crazy,” she said, “That’s just like us.”

Our family phrase of the week: “They are drilling our brains, but pampering our bodies.”  This program reminds me of our college days at Harding because they took away all my real world responsibilities like cooking, cleaning, traveling, and (most of the) homeschooling.  In return, they gave me strenuous classes and homework assignments.  I love it!  Plus, just like in college, the people we go to class with are the ones we play with on the weekends, the people we eat with in the dining room are the ones we worship with day in and day out….it’s Christian community on steroids. 

As a side note, we have learned a lot about language acquisition in the last two weeks. With input from others, Philip and I have a battle plan drafted for tackling West African French upon arrival to the country.  These language learning weeks have flown by, but the overarching lesson is this: Learning French in country is not going to resemble the tortuous years I spent attempting to learn Spanish in school.   God is faithfully bringing us into something completely new. 

“Hungry I come to You for I know you satisfy.”

Kathryn Scott