|
A Day In Mission Life... - 25 March, 2008 |
|
Written by Anonym
|
|
Tuesday, 25 March 2008 15:28 |
My cellphone rings one last time. One last time I hit "snooze" on this, my
modern day alarm clock. I glance at the digitized clock face on the display
- 7.30 a.m. Time to get a move on. I get up, put the "Laura's Sterrn"
video back in its case. I rub my eyes, and wonder what time it was last
night that the video ended. Children's videos like this one play an
important part in my language learning, and in a busy house it's the late
night hours that are often when Shan and I cram in a couple more hours'
worth of listening.
A quick shower. Get dressed. Grab a stack of vocab cards and flip through
them without glancing at my food. The boys are still in bed but awake.
Shannon is out for a quick walk, gathering her thoughts for the day. If I
get the kids up now I will be unable to review words I'm supposed to know in
class. I glance outside. Snow today. It was supposed to be sunny! After
a whole winter riding my bike I'm tiring of the half hour ride in the bitter
cold. It doesn't help that I recently lost my gloves. Today I give in and
borrow Shannon's monthly train ticket, say goodbye and duck out the door.
Today I arrive at the train station in time to catch the 8.30. As I make my
way through the Sendlingor Tor train station I notice "Fred" is in his
little produce store today, and no one is talking to him. I've been
promising to stop by again, so duck in and order my usual - a Mountain Dew.
At $2.50 a bottle it's not cheap, but I haven't seen Dew available anywhere
else in Munich. "Fred" is from Afghanistan. After exchanging warm
greetings he begins to tell me again about the millions of people that died
in the "Cold War" fights between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. His homeland has
been ravaged by many terrible wars, he tells me, and today is held hostage
by Islamic extremism. I want to talk more, and usually do, but this morning
I have another appointment to make. An Asian woman buys a single Banana,
then I pay for my Dew and promise to return soon.
I nearly sprint through the rest of the station, past the movie picture of
the men kissing, up the escalator, and through the archway to class. A
quick stop by the coffee machine ensures that my eyes will be open. The
Dew? It's for later of course! I shuffle into class. Review the charts
for Adjectives (I'm still having a hard time with these - but then most
people do!) and prepare myself for the morning. Why am I here? To get an
old message across to a new generation, yes. But in this class? Wretling
with adjectives, irregular verbs, and trying to memorize articles that I
will probably often get mixed up on the best of days?
It's about language. In our time when so many churches talk about being
"missional" I am convinced that we haven't given a lot of thought to the
skills required in mission. Language skill is skill number one. Language
is the first step in incarnation, following Jesus' example, not expecting
others to climb to heaven to meet with God but bringing His presence with us
into the every day lives of others. For all the people here who speak
English, I am surprised by how many really want, and expect you to speak
German. People like "Fred." "Your German is getting better and better" he
exclaims, even on the days you struggle to get the words out.
Communicating love starts with language. It doesn't stop there. But in
these winter months, it's a great time to cram all we can. I now have about
2300 words and Level 2 grammar. My next goal for the end of this month is
to grow to 3-5000 words and to be able to use adjectives correctly in my
sentences. With that I will be ready for summer, ready to hold
conversations on the street, ready to start taking Jesus' love to others.
But today I have work to do to get there. My homework assignment takes 10
minutes. I cram that in before our Tuesday team meeting. Two hours later
I'm entering new words in the computer and filling out flashcards. Dinner.
The rush to get the kids into bed. Now it's time to cram as much as I can
into the remaining hours before my body gives out. I need to separate my
nouns and adjectives into separate stacks so I can start practicing using my
adjectives in real sentences. I need to make flashcards for all the
irregular verbs. I need to make a list of verbs that use "sein" as a
helping verb. And then we can do this all again tomorrow.
But before that one other thing needs done.
I need to write home and say something about how terribly important this all
is.
That it's a matter of eternity.
That these months when we're learning language don't look so glamorous but
they are so, so, important.
I often wonder if anyone understands.
That with love, comes a language.
Loving words accompany loving action.
And to have both takes a lot of work.
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.519 / Virus Database: 269.22.0/1341 - Release Date: 24/03/2008
15:03
|