November Newsletter--Forgiving the Builders of Babel

Picture 1) The view from the front door of my apartment on campus.

Picture 2) Downtown Sherbrooke, the third largest city in Quebec, where my language school is located.

Picture 3) I still haven't been to the U.S. capitol, but I’ve been to Canada’s Parliament building in Ottawa while visiting a friend.

I’m afraid of peanuts. Not really, but accidentally change a few letters in French, and my fear of spiders transforms into a fear of salted baking ingredients. Needless to say, since I began language school in September, I’ve made my share of mistakes, all the while wishing I could travel back in time to seriously injure (or at least sabotage) the builders of the Tower of Babel.

You certainly have to admire God’s ingenuity when it comes to humbling us; no human would have conceived the idea of assigning every French noun a gender (Why are beards feminine while women’s shirts are masculine?) or of creating a plethora of languages with a plethora of different accents within each one (When my Quebecois pastor says the word for God, he sounds like an African French speaker saying the word for hard.). And yet God is the one who gives us the ability to learn new languages despite these barriers.

It makes me appreciate the fact that His strength is made perfect in weakness. If any child’s life will one day be transformed by a message I share in broken French, that child will have no doubt whatsoever that it wasn’t me doing the transforming.

Language-learning is tough, frustrating, and slow, but I’m blessed that God has brought me to Canada for a year to learn French and to grow closer to Him while attending class each day with the three other intermediate students, completing my daily Rosetta Stone and French media requirements, along with my weekly French church and French social activity attendance requirements, and just learning to live life and build relationships when I can’t say or understand everything I’d like to. I can’t wait to be able to praise Him in two languages.

Praise God for:
· Though I planned to attend language school in West Africa, the fact that I’m still in North America means I can visit friends who live nearby, go home for Christmas, and even make the occasional trip across the border for cheaper groceries or to mail newsletters to you, my wonderful friends for whom I am so thankful.
· The six missionary families who are also studying French and living on campus, and who are a huge blessing to me.

Please Pray for:
· My attitude as I learn French, that I would not get frustrated but would have patience, perseverance, and even joy through the process.
· That I would be able to build relationships with people here and that I would be able to see opportunities to reach out to them and bless them.