I always think to write on my blog when I'm not in a great mood. And, since I don't like the idea of complaining to the world, I end up writing nothing. I feel bad about that, because I want to be writing all about learning French, about raising Benjamin, and about being a missionary. So I want to say just a couple of things about what is going on in those areas of my life right now. Before I have any second thoughts.

Beginning with French. French is the third "second language" I've learned. At this point I speak it far better than I ever spoke the other two. My first "second language" was Spanish. I studied it in High School and then in College (for my European readers that means University). And then I spent a total for 7 months in Mexico practicing. But, as my mom says, "education is waisted on youth." I should have tried harder, and if I had I would defiantly have come out with a seriously superb ability in Spanish.
The second "second language" I studied was Arabic. Arabic is a whole different ball game if you will. (If you will what? what is that supposed to mean?). I studied Arabic four hours a day in school, five days a week. Then I had 10-15 hours of study time a week and then I did around 10 hours of conversation time a week. I was single obviously, and it was still very, very hard. I did this for one year before I quit and followed my husband to-be back to the states. On the first day of Arabic school the director stood up in front of all the new students and said, "Arabic is the second hardest language to learn in the world. Mandarin Chinese is the hardest." I leaned over to the girl next to me and said, "I'm going to need to be reminded why I'm here."
But French, French has been a wonderful awesome experience. I speak French. I speak it well--not necessarily in comparison with all the other people in my class, but with what it might be if I hadn't studied for so long, or in France, or as seriously as I have. I speak it.

Language learning is an something that changes you. It humbles you. It gives you a new world view. It gives you new and wonderful ways to say things you can't necessarily say in your own language. (There are dozens of different kinds of bakeries in France, which means I can say bakery in many interesting ways). But mainly its the humility part I want to mention. You could be a rocket scientist or a kindergarten teacher. When you enter a country where no one can understand your first language, you sound like a foreigner, and a three year old. Check your pride at the airport and pick it back up on your way out. As a language learner you learn to deal with the fact that you will never do it perfectly. Your chance of getting a perfect score or not making a mistake is basically none, zip, zero. You need to learn to deal with failing hourly, or even more frequently than that. Like I said, It changes you.

Parenthood. I love Benjamin. He is so cute. He is so funny. Wow! incredible. I love seeing how much he learns and grows each day. He can put his rings on his little bobby ring stick now. He can put little shapes in this blue ball with shapes cut out of it. He can say tiger, turtle, thank you, daddy. And I think today he said tooth. He doesn't say Mommy, and I think when I say, "Ben say mama," he thinks I'm saying no no, because he responds by shaking his head no. I hope that's the situation and its not just him telling me, "no, I'm not going to say your name. Sorry try again."

Raising Ben is also a humbling experience. Its humbling to know that I will do things wrong and God is in control and I'm not. But at the same time, I know that God is in control and I'm not. And I can't really mess Ben up. I am parenting with the philosophy is to teach Ben to love and honor God, and that's pretty much it.

Wow, but raising Ben and learning a language at the same time--that is a special combination of chaos for a girl who is famous for only being able to concentrate on one thing at a time. Pray for me, because I'm in trouble. I can't concentrate at all--and I need to. I have two months left to learn French. I need to get my grammar and my spoken French to a more "professional" level so that in the future I can write things that may circulate around the Chad missionary community (in French) and not sound like a four year old.

I'm increasing my hours in school for the month of December to 20 hours. Then in January I'm thinking of increasing to 30. Students who take 30 hours of class are so busy they hardly sleep, and they are usually single--not married with a child. So please please pray that God will bless my efforts and help me to have the time I need away from my daily responsibilities to concentrate on French.

Being a missionary. Right now the missionary part of my life is scary and exciting at the same time. I'm happy to be headed to Chad, even if the initial stage of living in Chad will be to pick up the Chadian dialect of Arabic. I'm excited to be there and to learn what it is like to live there, even if I won't be able to begin ministry to our target people group yet. I'm also excited to begin studying culture and history and stories as soon as possible.

I'm scarred because of the unrest in Chad. Right now the town that we will be moving to in three short months is very close to open fighting. When I say right now I guess I mean as of the last time I heard which was yesterday. There have been times where I've thought that I would pull out when we got closer to going. That I would turn to Dave two months before our departure and say, "I'm sorry, I just can't do it." But now that we are here, at the jumping off point, I'm ready. I know this is what God is asking us to do. I know it so completely that I can't even consider doing anything else but moving there.

There, I wrote something. If you are still reading thank you.