Back In School!

Well, you know what they say…learning keeps you young!  Well that’s good, because for the past two weeks, Rocky and I have been back in the classroom.  There were no teams booked for September and Manny and Cindy are in the US, so we decided to take advantage of the time and hit the books…once again!    

Learning another language (or two) is a challenge when you are 50+ years of age.  Not an impossibility, but certainly hard work.   

Because we often find ourselves in areas where no one speaks Spanish, we decided to study not only Spanish, but also a bit of Q’eqchi’.  Teams often ask us if there is any relation between Spanish and Q’eqchi’ and I’ll let you decide.  Below is a conversation in three way translation:

Hi, how are you?               Hola, como estas?         Ma sa la ch’ool.

Good thanks, and you?   Bien, gracias, y tu?       Sa lin ch’ool, bantiox, ut laa’at?

Good.                                 Bien.                                Sa.    

So, you be the judge.  Our goal is to become more fluent in Spanish and to be comfortable communicating a few basic greetings in Q’eqchi’. 

Living in a country where they don’t speak our mother tongue (English), we know how wonderful it is to have a conversation, listen to a teaching or sing a worship song in English – our heart language.  It is the same for the people here.  When we greet them in Spanish, a language they do not speak, it has little value.  We want to honour and love the people here and we believe that by learning some of their mother tongue (Q’eqchi’) we better do just that.    

And so…vale la pena –it is worth the struggle.  When you think of us throughout this month, please pray that the Lord would open up our hearts and minds and enable us to learn all we can so that we can better serve Him where He has planted us!