A Student...Again By Brita

Becoming a student again is a strange experience.  Before I left Montana State University to be a full time stay at home mom in 2002, I had always been a good student.  My motivation though was not always to learn.  My purpose for acquiring knowledge during my thirteen years in public school was a combination of pleasing my parents, pleasing my teachers, and competition with my classmates.   I enjoyed a lot of it along the way but I did not appreciate the education I was receiving.   It was a requirement and I certainly did not consider it a privilege at the time.  I went to MSU after high school simply because it was the next step.  Josh was working to get his engineering degree and I floated from major to major with no direction at all until Dan was on the way and I dropped out.  

Being a student this time around is entirely different because my motivation is entirely different.   We are here in Costa Rica spending 4-5 hours a day in class learning Spanish, with another 2 hours of homework a day.  That might not sound like a lot of time in the classroom each day compared to a full time job but it is all I can handle.  It’s hard to explain what happens to my brain during those hours but at times I feel like I am constructing a new addition in my brain.   I can feel this new part gradually clicking into place as I slowly search my head for the right verb, conjugate it, realize it's irregular, re-conjugate it, consider the pronunciation, then search for the right noun just to be able to say something simple like:  “They bring the book to school.”  Even then after working so hard to use this new and very weak part of my brain, after I have practiced how to say the sentence correctly in my mind, what pops out of my mouth is often not at all what I had planned to say!  I had it right and then my mouth betrays me and I say something totally wrong.  Instead of saying “I get dressed” I say, “I visit”.   Or, while I’m working so hard to find the right verb and conjugate it correctly, I forget that my noun is plural feminine and I say it in masculine singular.
    

It is then that my teacher gives me the look.  The look that says, “You know this!  I taught you this weeks ago!  What is going on with you?”  And to be honest I have no clue.  Sometimes I know it’s wrong as it leaves my mouth and sometimes I don’t notice I’ve said it wrong.  The point is when I have to think so hard about every word in every sentence, it’s hard, hard work.  It’s not just the words that I speak that my brain is intently working through, but every word every teacher and every fellow student says.  On Monday and Wednesday Josh and I have individual tutoring sessions in order get some extra help with anything we are struggling with.  It’s an intense forty minutes for both of us.   I often use the time to work on practicing verb conjugation and meanings, memorize vocabulary, or just to try some conversation.  Since I’m the only student there is no opportunity to think while the other students are taking their turns.   We are both so thankful for our tutoring sessions but we come out of them with a glazed stare and a mind of mush!  For all these reasons it’s hard to imagine our brains being able to take in more Spanish instruction each day.  The experience of a mind exhausted from language learning, doing daily life in a new language and culture with four kids is hard to explain.  It is definitely not a vacation!  I’ve been on many short-term mission trips and this does not compare at all the any of them.  This is something else.  It’s not an adventure, though we do get to go on what we call “adventures”.

Our adventures usually include trying not to get lost while getting to a new store that may or may not have what we are looking for and then the thrill of trying to find the right bus to get us back home.  Or the adventure of having a sweaty dirty family after playing at the park and coming home to no water for showers.  Or walking a hour to buy zip ties in order to put up mosquito screen.  You get the picture ☺

While we work our brains to exhaustion on a daily basis, and though there are some minor challenges to figuring life out here, I cannot say how thankful we are to be here and to be learning Spanish!  The difference between being a student now and my previous experiences being a student is my motivation.  I am motivated to learn not to please people and not to please myself.   I am motivated to learn in order to live in Peru so that Josh can train Peruvian pastors who are begging to be taught simple things like how to understand their Bibles and how to teach their congregations.  They want to share the gospel with their fellow countrymen and women, but they need and want training first.  I am motivated to learn Spanish because right now it is the work I can do, to do the work that every Christian has been called to:  to share the gospel with every tribe, tongue and nation.  It’s my part right now and I am so thankful I get to play it!

There is no work more important than to do what we can to bring the Hope of Christ to everyone!   It doesn’t look the same for everyone but this is what it looks like for me right now.   Thank you so much to everyone who has partnered with us in prayer, by sending us encouraging emails and letters, and financially.  You are doing the work of language learning with us in Costa Rica and soon you will be doing the work of training Pastors in Peru right along side us!