Take off the training wheels

Do you remember when you first tried to ride a bike with no training wheels? I remember like it was yesterday. I remember when the training wheel first came off. I was balling. I was terrified I was going to fall off my bike and die. My father assured me he would hold on. He was stern. I had to do this. There was no backing out. This happened long before kids started wearing helmets and pads to learn how to ride a bike. Back in the good old days.

I was terrified as I started riding. My dad kept his word and held on… for about five seconds. As I was riding, I turned around and I had left him in the dust. I should have known. There was no way I was going to get him to run down the street. He lied but I was riding!

Speaking a new language is the same way. After being here a couple of weeks, I had some language. Enough to get a ride in a taxi and return home. While this may sound childish and it is, my address is: San Franciso de Dos Rios, 100 mts este iglesia catolica. 25 mts izquerda, casa aldo de izquerda color es café y crema. You don’t exactly put that into Google maps. There came a time when I needed to get a cab and give him my destination and then return home with my ridiculously long address. In order to speak Spanish sometimes you just have to... speak Spanish.

There are many similarities to our own spiritual walk. Probably what people have told me more than anything else relating to their personal walk with the Lord is that they don’t understand the Bible. Let me say two things before I give you the answer I give them. First, reading the Bible is important. God gave us creation, his Son, and a book. We need to look outside, believe in his Son, and read his book. Secondly, reading the Bible is not a substitute for knowing God. There are stronger believers with greater faith who cannot read and who don’t have the Bible in their language.

So back to my answer. How do you understand the Bible? You read it!

You read it fast, read it slow, read it early, and read it late. Read it in bed and at a desk. Read it so your life won’t be a mess.

Read it in sections and read them again. Just in case you don’t get it at first. You will get it once in it you’re immersed. 

Don’t be afraid of all of the pages, they have been there for ages! Let them become familiar to your fingers. Read them often to answer any question that lingers.

So by now my answer should be quite clear. If you can’t read just make sure you can hear. For in times past, one person would read and all would stand near.

Still today there are many who don’t read at all. Many of them live in the mountains and are not quite tall. They are the ones whom we will teach, so their people they will reach.

I hope you enjoyed Dr. Seuss inspired poem. Do not take your literacy for granted. God has given you a great gift. Would you pray for Katie and me as we embark on learning a new language? 

Blind Spots

The first two months here have been difficult to say the least. Katie spent a week in the hospital and still needs a couple more tests. We are in a new country, learning a new language, and meeting new people. Maybe one of the greatest challenges is being a parent during this whole process.

We have had ups and downs of language. At first, Hannah did not like her school. They only spoke to her in Spanish and she knew only English. She finally started catching on and has now surpassed us! Just this last weekend she was not being obedient at all. In order to get her to come I had to speak in Spanish, “Venga aqui!” When I told her to “come here” she came immediately.

It has been a little different as we navigate Costa Rican sicknesses. She had a virus. It was similar to viruses in the US but it was stronger and lasted longer. She had a fever for a week and a three day rash followed. She now has a lingering cough. Other kids have been sick with other things and I’m praying it passes without another trip to the doctor.

What has been most difficult here is my hidden blind spots. Well, that was being too positive. This has challenged my prayer life and my faith like nothing before. Over the past two months as we have went from one difficulty to another, I have prayed like the man in the Bible whose child needed to be healed by Jesus. Jesus told the man all things were possible for the one who believes. In a moment where the depths of his soul were peered into by the Lord, he prayed, “I believe, help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24).

I don’t know what it is but when someone you love is sick it is bad. But it seems when your child is sick it is the worst thing ever. My reference point for sicknesses in Costa Rica has been things at a week-long interval. It seems that with each day there is a new depth of my heart that is being exposed and revealed. When NASA released pictures form the Hubble telescope everyone (including myself) was amazed at seeing the deepest pictures of space. I feel like those pictures are a Polaroid compared to intense gaze of the Lord upon my heart. So I pray, “I believe, help my unbelief.”  

Has God failed?

Has God failed?

Hannah woke up this morning with a cough. Today, it was a little more pronounced than yesterday. So yet again, we are missing another day of school to keep her home. Katie is feeling much better so we are alternating during the day. What gets me about Hannah being sick is that Katie and I have prayed for her to be well and not get sick. She is sick. Has God failed?

In one sense, yes. God has failed. He just hasn’t failed as you may think of it. God has not failed to be good, righteous, just, loving, or sovereign. In other words, he has not stopped being God. But he has failed to be a get well genie for us.

Two years ago, John Piper said, “God is always doing 10,000 in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” Ouch! So Hannah is sick. I am not sure why she is sick. I would love her to never get sick, ever. What I don’t know is what God knows. He knows each virus and bacteria she will face in her life. He knows that for her to have a strong immune system later she has to have these little coughs and sicknesses. Sicknesses build immune system strength.

I’m staying at home first. We will probably take her to the doctor tomorrow. We will have extra tea parties. She will take an extra nap. I will continue to pray she gets well but in my prayers I will pray to God who is always good, always righteous, always, just, always loving, always sovereign, and has seen his own Son in far worse shape than my daughter with a cough. 

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.

You Win Some You Lose Some

One of the challenges of living in another country is buying food. Some things are pretty easy to discern, apples are apples no matter where you live. They do have water apples here. They look like a shriveled read pear but alas Granny Smiths are Granny Smiths wherever you go and you use them to bake an apple pie. There are other uses for Granny Smith apples but none are as good as an apple pie. Rice looks like rice. Beans look like beans, their “musical nature” is also present in Latin America.

However, there are somethings that are not similar. Spices are new and have different names. There are some similarities but more differences. Product descriptions are all in Spanish which we are learning. The most difficult is meat. The cuts of meat are much different and the names of fish differ between Latin American countries. For instance, the name for a fish here in Costa Rica is small type of snapper whereas in Mexico it is an eel so using Google Translate is no help.

Then there are things without names. This comes when we go to the market. It is typically busy and very few signs. We ran into a bit of a problem when we tried out a new stand that was selling leafy items. Katie wanted a go at it so she ventured into the ladies stall. She was surrounded by leafy green edible plants and people. The sales lady talks fast so Katie did her best to understand. She returned with a couple of bags of green leafy things. We came home, soaked them, spun them (in a salad spinner to decrease the drying time), and stored them. While I was looking at the items, I asked Katie what she got. Well, what she thought she bought was not what she bought. She did successfully buy some spinach but failed on the arugula. We now have an immense amount of mint. I mean we have a lot of mint.

I’m not sure what will come of it. I can’t drink anymore mint tea and she’s not allowed to sneak anymore of it into a salad. There is nothing like brushing your teach as you eat a salad let me tell you! So we will chalk that one up to a loss.

Our motto grocery shopping is, “You win some you lose some.” While Katie’s story was more recent, the first week here I attempted to buy some sausage. I had just had some delicious chorizo. So I bought two different types. The first was a Costa Rican chorizo and the other came as a package in a long sausage link with red lining. The first night I cooked part of the big link and one of the Costa Rican chorizos. I was so excited to taste them, if they were anything like what I had earlier I had hit the jackpot. Well instead of hitting the jack pot, I swung and missed horribly. The Costa Rican chorizo was the worst sausage I had ever had in my life. It was slimy, bland, and bad all at the same time. It was worst sausage I had ever eaten until I took a bite of the other one. What was in the nice large link of sausage? Bologna. Yep, you’re every old day bologna. Now if you are a person who like bologna two things. First, I feel sorry for you. Food is so good and meat tastes so great there is no reason to put it in your mouth. Secondly, I bet if you eat it, you probably don’t eat a two inch thick piece of it. You probably mask it with mayonnaise, lettuce, cheese, mustard, bread, or some combination therein. It was a big letdown, far worse than drinking unsweet tea when you are expecting sweet tea. So we still have some mint in our refrigerator, we got rid of all that sausage.

While we do win some and lose some, you only do if you play the game or in our case, go to the market. But if this is all about nasty sausage and enormous amount of mint I have wasted your time. However, I think about us sharing the gospel. The motto is true, you will win some (to Christ) and lose some (they are already lost) but you can only win someone to Christ if you step out and share the gospel. As a comfort to you, remember sharing the gospel is not about your convincing someone. No one has ever been won to Christ because you came with polished arguments and defending the gospel like a seasoned pro. People come to Christ because God draws them to himself. How does he do this? Through your faithful obedience and by your stepping out in faith by sharing the gospel. Sharing the gospel is primarily your bragging on God and what he has done in Christ. The gospel is the good news. The good news is that no one is too lost to save, no sin is too great, and everyone is welcome. So get out there and share the gospel!

Stop and Hear the Parrots

Living in another country is full of challenges.

In Latin America, there is the challenge to remember toilet paper goes in the trash can not the toilet. That is really a thing here. The struggle to remember that is real! There is the challenge of a new schedule. Here the sun creeps over the mountains a little after 5am. In case you were wondering, that was not our normal time to wake up. It was definitely not Hannah’s normal time to wake up.

Here we are loaded up. Hannah is 30 pounds and our three backpacks are a little more than that in total weight. 

Even though there are many difficulties, there are great experiences too. In order to acclimate well, sometimes we just need to stop and smell the roses.

Take this morning for example, we are in the middle of rainy season which means the ants (hormigas) invade. A couple of days a week while I wait for hot water to boil for my coffee, I kill ants. It is me verses them. I’m not about peace treaties with them. I want them to die slowly so they can tell their friends. To be honest, they don’t bother me too much. I view it as a challenge to eradicate them. Since we have a fifteen minute walk to school, we put Hannah in a stroller (graciously given to us by a church before we left and life is easier with it). However, this morning, the ants found her stroller. Her stroller is like every other toddler’s stroller or car seat – absolutely disgusting. The ants found Hannah’s little buffet for them.

We were already running late so Katie put her baby carrier on and I loaded up with three back packs. We thought about catching a taxi to school but the traffic was pretty bad which meant we could walk about as fast as a taxi. Looking back, I’m so glad we walked. Because we were without a stroller, we entered into the school through a different gate which allowed us a new site and sound, parrots! As we approached the school, we were greeted with the screeches. Parrots aren’t exactly song birds!

Acclimating to a new culture is difficult but if you will live with the “glass is half full” mentality it gets easier. This was a good morning to stop, see, and hear the parrots. How glorious! 

So I’m learning español. People ask how it is going. To be honest, I do not know enough to tell you. In class, I do not understand enough to ask questions! There are some people in class that are having complete conversations and I am completely lost. I’m not without hope in the process. God has called me and he will equip me. This doesn’t mean I don’t need to study it just means he is with me when I am.

There are three ways to say give a demonstrative pronoun in Spanish. They are éste, ése, áquell. These are masculine forms. For you grammar types, there are also masculine plural (éstos, ésos, aquéllos), feminine/plural (ésta/s, ésa/s, áquella/s), there is also a neuter form (ésto, éso, áquello). Now that I have satisfied the grammar nerd in all of you and figured out how to do accents on letters, which was no small feat. Let me tell you why this is comforting to me.

In English we use, “this” or “that” as demonstrative pronouns. These words represent things that are in our hand (this) or things that are far away (that). In español, it is different. They add a different degree of distance. They use éste, ésta, and ésto for something at hand. They use ése, ésa, and ésto for something close but not in hand. They use áquell, áquella, and áquello for something far away.

So while studying this for class, I began to think about how there are some people close at hand. I can talk to them on a daily basis, get to know them, and share the love of Christ with them. There are others who are a little farther away. I may see them occasionally or I may speak to them on social media. There is yet another group of people, those who are far away. Those people, I will never meet. I will never get to know them. They are too far. Even though someone may be too far for me to reach, they are not beyond the reach of God. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. No one can hide from him.

It makes me think about the people Sentinelese people. They are uncontacted. They live on an island in the Bay of Bengal. When contact has been attempted they have shot arrows and killed anyone who comes close. For this reason, India has imposed a three mile buffer zone around the island. The Sentinelese people are too far for me but not for God. I’m praying that these far off people would be open to the Gospel and those who are far off would be brought near.