Lost in Translation

Life in Asia: Language Bloopers

Today my girls and I were learning about Mexico. I shared with them that both Aaron and I used to study Spanish. We both spent years in both high school and college learning Spanish. Now it's difficult to remember anything beyond "Hola" and a few colors and numbers. Mandarin has used up most of the language area of our brains. One of the more challenging aspects of living as a foreigner in another country is learning the language. Language is not just grammar and vocabulary; a language exists in a culture, it has a context. There is a way of calling someone an idiot here that is just a series of numbers, a series of numbers that you would surely use when bargaining. If you don't remember to use a different name for the numeral "2" in the number, you will offend the shopkeeper. I can know the vocabulary but if I don't understand the context then I miscommunicate. We have a store of language bloopers, so many that it's hard to re...

God Speaks

Last week our team hosted a Vision Trip consisting of about 12 businessmen and women from the States. It was a great, but tiring week which culminated in a 35 person banquet including children. Its a tradition to hear vision trippers thoughts on their experiences from that week and to encourage them to join with us in our mission here. Sara was asked to give her thoughts, from a mom's perspective, regarding what her transition has been like and how she views this crazy ministry God has called us to. I (Aaron) don't think I've ever been more proud of her. I wish I could've seen the looks on others' faces in the room, but like theirs, mine was fixated on her as she spoke. Here it is, straight from Sara's mouth. "When I was asked to share why it's worth it to move a family with three small children across the world to a crowded city in a foreign country I was hesitant. The truth is that in the midst of this difficult season of transition there have been ...

Life in Asia: Driving

I remember riding in a friend's car just a couple days after arriving in this city. I thought, "I could never drive here." It appeared to me that there were no rules- cars were all over the road, crossing lanes, making turns and U turns, not to mention the pedestrians, bikes and carts that seemed to come out of nowhere. At that point, I also had no idea where I was most of the time and when I looked at a map of the city, the maze of streets, small roads and alleys was overwhelming. When I had lived here just after graduating from college I had carried a paper map in my bag, but I mostly relied on the people I was with and taxi drivers to know where I was, I didn't really care how I got there as long as I arrived at my destination. Driving was different though, you had to know where you were, where you wanted to go and which roads to take to get there. I still rely heavily on that blinking blue dot on my google maps even when I'm walking somewh...

The Wurglers

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