Thoughts Along The Journey

Okay, I know that’s not proper English (neither British nor American).  However, my point is simply that learning to talk with others in a language that is not our heart language is a work of perseverance in order to get to the objective of sharing our faith with others in a cross cultural context.

Perseverance calls for several actions or heart attitudes that are not natural to our hearts.

For one, the work of perseverance pushes you to always keep the endpoint in mind.  We should not be satisfied with ‘almost there’.  90% is still 10% short, we could say.  The problem here is that we are good at talking ourselves into accepting ‘half-way’ work.   Other concerns begin to weigh in on us. The main concern in cross cultural life, we believe, is to ‘get out into ministry’.

For another, the work of perseverance presses on the humility quotient.  Coming from ministry experience in our own cultural context, we can feel ‘child-like’ in cross cultural life and ministry when we recognize that it takes a whole lot longer to talk, to get a sentence out then it does in our own culture and language.  Perseverance drives us see our need for grace even in language learning and cultural acquisition.

Finally, the work of perseverance can highlight (regularly) our weaknesses. The problem for me (and most of us) is that I don’t always see the benefits of this ‘highlighting’.  However, the psalmist saw this benefit (Psalm 139:23-24) and maybe his prayer should become our prayer.

It is true that at the 30 kilometer mark in a marathon, one ‘hits the wall’.  The temptation to quit is so strong when one ‘hits that wall’ that it’s hard to resist.  When I ran the Paris marathon, one of my teammates here in France stepped on the course at the 30 kilometer mark and ran with me for two kilometers.  The words of encouragement that teammate shared were just what I needed to ‘go all the way’ to the end of the marathon at 42 kilometers.

Perseverance is hard work, but it is a community work.  Struggling in language and culture?  Tempted to ‘call it quits’ before the language acquisition finish line?  Feeling discouraged at not being able to express yourself like you would want?  Call on a friend. Call on a group of friends.  Call on the community to help because we ‘gotta go all the way’ to learning the language and culture of those God has called us to serve.

Filed under: Crossing cultures, Language learning, Perseverance |