There is more than just Spanish being taught in our classes.

Our day is broken into four sections. The first part of my day consists of Spanish babbling. The class is Fonetica and the focus is on the vocalization of letters, words, and sentences. If you have ever heard someone speak Spanish, you should have noticed they do so very quickly, and that their mouth seems to barely move when they are rapidly moving from word to word and syllable to syllable. There is a reason for this, some words are combined due to the first or last letter in opposing words. While I finish my cup of coffee (and usually pour another one in class), I repeat the teacher in a group, and then we do it individually. No one in our group is from the Deep South or Texas so everyone does pretty well. The class isn’t as important for me but it is a good way to wake my mind up to Spanish plus the coffee is good!

The second class is all speaking. This class is great because I really learn by doing. In order for me to connect the grammar rules, I need to speak them in a sentence. Since there are only four of us, I get many opportunities to speak. Today in class, we were given card with verbs written on them and told to use them to ask a question to another student. Well my brain works different. It works much different. I looked at my verbs and immediately had two questions I wanted to ask but knew I couldn’t lead with them. I saved them for the end and tried to play nice. My last two questions were, “Why do you show your children your muscles?” My verb was mostrar meaning “to show” and it was all I could think of at the time. It was followed with several muscle poses by the teacher and students, we are all guys. It was perfect with several of us doing our best Arnold impersonation. It was great. The last question I had to use cortar meaning “to cut.” So I asked, “Quien corta el queso?” which means, “Who cut the cheese?” All the students laughed. The teacher started talking about the white cheese popular here in Costa Rica.  We explained that it was a phrase used in English with two meanings, a literal one and then it was used to talk about farting. He loved it. We followed this by several people making farting noises and using the question in English and Spanish. It was great to teach him something! Plus who doesn’t like doing a muscle pose and making fart noises in class? Well most women probably (hopefully) don’t but us guys, we always enjoy a good muscle pose and any noise that sounds like someone passing gas.

After a break, I go to Grammatica. Tuesdays and Thursdays there is chapel so break is filled with English worship and a sermon but then it all gets real when we sit down to learn grammar. Grammar is a tough class. There is more instruction and less talking. Learning the rules is no problem for me but I struggle putting it together in a class with eleven people. There are some people in class that have full conversations in Spanish. I’m not there. I’m not even close. Even though the class is difficult, this is my favorite teacher. She is excellent. She is animated and uses different teaching methods to help every student. While she may teach me everything I know about Spanish grammar, this week I learned something more important than grammar.

I looked at her resume. She used to teach in the University. She is the most educated at the school and has great credentials. This week on Tuesday, the chapel service was a QandA with the teachers. Now to be honest, I had no idea what any of them said. I did notice that my teacher cried when she was asked a question and I noticed several other students moved by the teachers’ responses. After asking my teacher to tell us what the questions were I learned more of what was said. There was one question that asked them why they taught at the school. All four of them said they taught at the school because they knew missionaries were needed in Latin America. They view their job as a ministry. While they get paid for what they do, they do it because they love it and because it has Kingdom impact. My teacher took a pay cut and a less prestigious position because she can have greater Kingdom impact teaching missionaries how to communicate in Spanish. That lesson is better than any rule for a preposition!

Now what if you viewed your job that way? What if you viewed your job as a ministry? You probably aren’t teaching a second language to missionaries but what if you viewed your job as a missionary? What if you set out for work tomorrow looking to make an impact in the Kingdom? When you are approached about a new job or promotion ask yourself, will I have a greater opportunity to impact the Kingdom of God? Live your life in such a way that the Kingdom of God pushes back the darkness.