It was November, the third month after we had arrived at the little village of Maduda in Zaire for our two years of Kikongo language study. Yea, the language honeymoon was over. It was humiliating. I remember going to the local Sunday church service. Of course a white Albertan sticks out in a sea of African blacks. I was the new missionary, ordained even, an assumed spiritual leader. So I was asked to pray after the offering to thank God for the gifts from His people. I froze. Who me? So far I’ve only memorized how to say my name and that I am studying your language. He can’t be serious, but yes, the pastor behind the big wood pulpit was still looking at me. I stood. I mumbled. Some words were in French. Some were in Kikongo – I did at least know “thank you” and “God”, so was able to pull those out of my tiny vocabulary toolbox and repeat them about three times to nail home the main point – thanks to God. I sat down. I felt humiliated. Five year old children do better than 31 year old me in this language. I considered not coming back to church for a year until I could use complete sentences. But I swallowed my pride, and next week, I came back for more punishment, except this time I came prepared with four memorized prayer sentences, the first two generic, then an after the offering sentence and an after the sermon sentence – those were the two possibilities. An advantage of attending the long three hour church service was that factored into my necessary 30 hours of weekly language study. After what seemed like a long time, the perseverance paid off. The language police declared I had completed the necessary requirements.
That is a distant memory today. The rewards have been immeasurable – the joy of being able to teach and converse in three languages reading the non-verbal communications from eyes that are following and connection points achieved is exhilarating. Today I try to keep my French from dying via TV5 newscasts and French music.
So, if you are studying language today and maybe not exactly enamored with life at this stage, well, my fellow worker………keep on truckin’. We don’t give up. There is light at the end of the language tunnel. And if you are beyond official language study, and you maybe peg yourself at 5,6 or 7 on a scale of 10, then push on, take it to another level. Language excellence is good. But maybe more than that “for the sake of the cross” means we push ourselves to be the best communicators we can be for the master’s use.
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