Unpredictable

Last Thursday was one of those unique, memorable, and even unpredictable days.

It started with my weekly Thursday morning Bible study. This Bible study is with a man named Pedro. When he was eight years old he went with his family to their farm. While there, one of the local tribes saw him and kidnapped him. They took him to their village where he was raised as one of them. Though he himself will tell you he was much shorter and fatter than the others, he quickly blended in, learning their language and customs. Fast forward in his life, he was able to reunite with his family when he was in his 20s. He is a hard-working man — from what I understand he was always either farming, hunting, fishing, or chopping wood to add on to his house or make a new canoe! Unfortunately, one day while he was hunting, his makeshift blind at the top of the tree broke and he fell down becoming paralyzed from the waist down. Today, he is able to sit up on the ground and with his arms move from room to room, but he obviously cannot leave his house without great help. I am studying the Bible with him, teaching many of the same stories that I put here on our blog last year. He can read and therefore he likes for me to give him 10 chapters per week for him to read to prepare for our lesson the following week. He noticed in Joshua that the people took the ark into the river. He also noticed while reading some of First Samuel, that the people were also taking the ark around the land. He asked me if this ark was Noah’s ark! On another occasion he asked me why there is so much suffering in some parts of the world while other parts seem to have less suffering. He is an intelligent man, and I never know what questions he might ask! Pray that God would work in Pedro’s heart through His Word.

After I left Pedro’s, I was on my way to our local church to study. On my way I heard someone calling me from his front porch. I immediately recognized him as a young man that I have seen around town who likes to practice his English with me. I walked onto his porch and saw tears in his eyes. In front of him was a bucket of ice with a bottle of rum and two bottles of flavored vodka. I asked him what was going on. He lost his job at the beginning of January. Then, the day before he saw me, his wife left him along with their only son. He sat there trying to drink away his hopelessness. He mentioned to me that he had thoughts of suicide. I told him the story of joy and hope and peace and reconciliation and forgiveness and salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. Be praying for him as well.

That afternoon was my language class. I have recently begun classes to learn the Naka language, one of the local languages. My normal language helper was busy so he put his nephew in his place. His nephew does not speak as much Portuguese which can be an advantage in the sense that I get more of the “raw” Naka language. However it can also be a disadvantage as there can be miscommunication regarding the intended vocabulary. This is exactly what happened! This day I had chosen to learn about spatial opposites, such as up & down, left & right, in & out, etc. Some of these he was able to understand without problem as I held a bowl (representing a basket) and a small ball (representing a fish) and tried to show him the fish on top of the basket or the fish under the basket, etc. However some of them I could tell he was having trouble understanding. We pressed on and he gave me what he thought were the best translations. When my actual language helper came back I decided to run some of the translations past him. Apparently the ball and bowl was not as clear as I had hoped! For instance when I tried to say “the fish is to the left of the basket” he gave me the translation “the fish is at the riverbank!” (Perhaps the left side of the riverbank?) When I tried to signal “the fish is in the basket,” he gave me the translation of “the man put the fish in the basket” (this one is a little bit closer to the actual intended meaning!). The funniest one was when I asked him to translate “the fish is out of the basket.” The translation he gave me was “the man ate the fish!” Needless to say when I got home Savannah and I had a good laugh about this. Learning a language for which there is no textbook can be difficult! I try to show a lot of pictures and do a lot of charades to learn new vocabulary. Obviously some things can be lost in translation! Please be praying for my language classes.