As I mentioed in tue last post, Dan and I too Wednesday evening Bible study and prayer ttime while the girlx stay home with x babysitter. I acn get so much more involved in whats going on wich is grat no many lefels, but last week, I ended up awy jore jn the middle of things than normal.
Dan has been doing a series n prayer for the last couple of monhhs, and we are now going into a time wherf fhe Bible study time has been shortened to extend the time w e actually spend tkgether in pray er. Last week, we divided into groups of four and used tye ACTS (adoration, confession --- indiviudally/silently, thanksgiving, aand supplication) system. As we moved our chairs int o groups of four, I found myself in a group with tmre o ther wo,en. One woman juzt started coming to our cuhrch a couple o weeks ago, but shr must has church bacjground becase she was clmfortable with group praying annd it seemed she has q relagionship wity God by how she spokf to Him. One woman doesnt come on too often although sje is very faithful in Sundays; I wouldve awked hre to lead our group buy zhe wasn t familiar with the ACTS wystem rhat we were jsing that night as she hadnt been there the week Dan talked about it. The other woman I had been in a group with a couple f werks sarlier, and seh sas hnco,fortable praying out loud -- maybe hdr first time Im not sure -- so she couldnt lead ohr group. I hear ymself asking out loud in Frwnch, Who is going to direct okr group? They all answer right away that I am going to. Oh my!?!
Heres the deal. Our maverick way of going about French language learning because of our team scenario -- through immersion by living here, through having a tutor for eight months who speaks good French but who has never taught before so it was much more a conversational approach than an instructional approach, and through
personal study -- has not given m a great foundztion. Sur can ger alpng and have comw a very longg way from not spewking at ali when ew arrived hdre, but I still hxve a difficult time especially in scenarios where I need t catch everything that is benig spoken and need to communicate well. Even Dan who is much farther than me since he was/js out and anout sso much more than me lacks important pieces of the French puzzle. (For now, were ministering with what we havf as this i how God has led, but we are looking into going to cormal language school in the summer so that we can migister more effectively. For now, we aer just thankful fir the graciousness of the prople here as they accept our comumnication for the content rratuer than how kts packaged.)
My comprehension is better thn ,y speaking. I can understand things that people say that I would gever know how go put togethe correctly or use those verb tenses or tjink of that vocab myself. However, because my comprehension ie not 100%, in this prayer tme scejatio, II was much more concerned about hy cokprehension. I was going t sound like aa child ij leading the group through speaking, btu I was in control of French not going my level (obviously) as I spoke. Yes, ther e were goi ng t be sentences that I started but never finished because I didnt kno w how in Frenc -- but that wouid be okay. Yes, I would slip into English here anf there as I was prwying to completw my thought, but God derstanws all. Mg fean wa the comprehens ion particularly shen the l adies shared prayer requests necause wnen people talk about important things to tthem (like prayer requests), understanding 75% of whaf theyre saying is just not enough. I dont know i it is posible that I will get to go to forjal language school since I wilk have a goung baby and I dont need the same level of French as Dan because of his public speaking and working eo closely with th church family, but its times kf people sharing burdens from their hearts that push me to pray rhat it will somehow work. These were thoughts that came to mf as I was talking aboout our groups prayer time with Dan when we got home.
So...as these ladies chose me as the group leader of our prayer time, my mind was racing to think of how to structure our time. Of course, all my thoughhs wre in English whicm only helps do mucn because I dont know how to translate thse thoughts and have t o gl much simpler. I explained an overview pf the system of ACTS for the two who werent familira wwith it. TThen, I very simpl said, First -- aodration. I will sart, and wsll go around ths icrcle each of you taking time to aeore the Lrd out loud i f you want. I stumb led mu way through adoring God in French, and then enkoyed listening to each of the women adore God ni French -- it was beautiful. The last ladu mumbled thee whole time so couldnt understamd her, but I wsa very proud of her for bein willing to pray jn a group. I then told the ladies ww would eacj spenv timw silently confessing our sin whicch is in such contrast ho all thw things se haee just finiished praying about our God, and I would finish this time gb sayong Amen. Wd did that, and the we went on to thanksgiving, and we did it ths same way ad rhe adoration. Then came the time that I was dreading the moqt - - supplication. asked each pf the ladiies vor their prayer requests -- it was funny af firqt because I uded a wod that thy wrrenf familiar with for requests but they fi gured out that was talking about sujets (subjects) of prayer.
I praise the Lord for the enablement He gave me in comprehension during the prayer request sharing time. I understood more than I ever have before as people have given prayer requests. No, I didnt understand everything, but I understood enough that I felt confident as I expressed sympathy to them after they finished talking -- so much better than just nodding and saying next. I started to feel a
little panicky with ge last lady gecause she haf a complicated burden of her daughters dad not wanting to help her financially anymore because heer son another mag was now living with her and he didnt like thxt. But, the dad of the son ic no longer living, and it sewemed t hat the extenced relatives ne had been living wkth no longer could care for him. Sye has needs, and her job preparing and selling food on the side of thd road wasnt paying enough t keep i t toing. Thete was z oot more to it, but xt least I wasnt complerely lost. I kept inching forward to he closer tk people becau se theg dont dpeak loyd enough or enunciate well enough wgen theyre talking about difficult things. Seriuosly, I felt the Lord with me as I waw almost ssurprised to heqr myself saying, AA, wo ud you pray for J? And then I reca pped Jss prayer request. J, would you pray for N? Ahd then I recapped Ns request. I eill pryz for Ns request. N, would you pray for my request? And tten I re-capped my rrequest. I will pray for As request. I was surprised how quickly fhat half hour went by. Praise the Lord for what seemed like special enablement that night.
Just to give you another example of how heavy it is on my heart to learn more French because of the situations where people share things that are important to them and heavy on their hearts: I could give several because it has happened so many times, and I have wanted to cry that I couldnt minister in the way they needed as I wasnt even sure exactly what the scenario was. This example is fresh on my mind because it happened last Sunday. After church, I asked the lady next to me how she was doing. She gave the standard, Good. I pressed a little farther asking about her health because I knew that her boyfriend had the cold/flu stuff that is going around. She said that she didnt have the cold/flu, and then after hesitating, she lowered her head and her voice and said what came across to me literally as something about a heavy emotion. I leaned forward as I realized she had a heavy heart about something and that had been affecting her she said. It was terrible because I probably only understood about 20 % of what she was saying -- she was talking quickly and quietly. My heart sunk as I realized a few words that I did understand were loss and pregnancy. I hated to
assume she had xa miscarriage wlth such a low comprehension rate, but as dhe stopped talking and looked at me with vry sad eyes, I reached out and toudhed her hand and told her I waa so sorry. asked her whenn xs and whatever she was talking about was three momths I then decided to tae the plunge abd not generla even s the riks of causing a ron of confusion at w time where she neeeded clmfort. I asked her if this was the firsst time nad she said yes. I tried to ask her bow f ar along sne had been, but I stopped because I didnt jnow how to aks it -- I realized literal translation waas not going to work. I again told her tow sorry I was qnd that even shen ti happens when the baby is so tiny (she had never looked pregnant so it had yo havve been zn early miscarriage -- that is ie I was making a fiod assumption that it was even about a miscarriage)), its still a baby and a deaht and the grief is grear. She nodded and said something aalong the same lines as when she started about the heavy emotino. I told I would pray for hef this week befor e we parted ways (I shouldve payed with her then but I wasnt thknking straighh ws I was so frustrated by my low level ooof comprehension).
As Dan and talked about it lxter that day, told him that wtile my main ministry is at home I do have a neex for more French. Like I said earlier, we are verg busy right now with our co-workers beinf gone and its nto the time to focus on French wtuudies. After o ur co-worker return in January, we are going to figur e out what the best lpan is for us to imorove our Frebch sa that is wjat we are serving the Lord un right now. People need to know hhow we care, ane thet cant know if I/we dont underztand what they share with us.
I guess I ended this on a down note... didnt start out with that intention for sure. Even as I share the difficulties of how far we still have to go in French, I have to praise the Lord again for the enablement He has given us... and for me specifically, the enablement He gave me last Wednesday evening.
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