Language

I am now on language learning attempt number three.  The guy who tutored me for my first three months here started university in January, so he no longer has the time.  We decided to go to an adult school nearby and take the level 1 Setswana class.  Though our teacher, Queen, is accustomed to teaching illiterate adults who speak Setswana how to read and write, she willingly took on the challenge of trying to figure out how to help us learn the language.  It was quite an adjustment for her, I think.  Our first class she spent teaching us about syllables, and trying to get us to form words from different sounds.  We tried to explain that we could put random sounds together all day and that wouldn’t mean they were Tswana words, but seemed to have trouble getting the point across.  When we would ask her about rules and grammar it would take a long time to get the point across-probably because her normal students don’t ask about those things.  Though she did try, and got progressively better in our four classes with her, she eventually decided that the work load of trying to put together lesson plans for us on top of all her usual classes was too much.

Now, Mama Jane, a dear partner to InnerCHANGE South Africa (and the woman I lived with from November to January) has taken on the challenge.  She is a retired teacher, and taught Setswana.  It’s also her first language.  I know it’s difficult because we are at different levels-I have been learning since October, Emily has a month or so under her belt, and Rebekah is just starting out.  We like to know what rules are and why things are the way they are, which can sometimes be hard to explain.  We want to understand the structure of sentences and words the way we understand the English (or Spanish, for me) structure of sentences, and have to just learn to let go of our desire for everything to have an English correlation.  It’s an interesting journey for all of us, but I’m excited to have someone who knows us and loves us and has experience teaching taking on the challenge.  Maybe there’s hope for me yet!

Love

I’ve had love on my mind lately.  I recently reread the (amazing) book Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers.  It is a retelling of the story of Hosea, set in California gold rush days.  I’ve read this book many times, but this time more than others I was struck with a deep longing to know God’s love as it is portrayed in this book: passionate, pursuing, always patient.  The longing was sometimes so great I would just put the book down and weep.  Every fiber of my being cries out for a love that could fill me up, that could take my heart of stone and turn into a heart of flesh.  While I know in my head about such love, it is hard to grasp it when you can’t see or feel it.  Dominated by my emotions, it is easy for me to make decisions about whether God loves me and how much by how I am feeling at any given moment.  

A movie I watched recently had a similar effect on me.  It was Moulin Rouge (you can laugh at me if you want).  There is a phrase repeated several times in the movie and it stuck with me afterwards: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”  The movie lifts up love as the ultimate good, and it touches on something, doesn’t it?  Only it’s focused on the wrong source for that love.  I’m starting to believe that the best thing I can learn in life is to just love God, and allow Him to love me in return.  Everything else flows from that.  It will result in learning to love the people around me without expecting anything in return, and being able to receive their love without placing my identity in it.  

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19.