{"id":1806,"date":"2015-09-20T01:19:54","date_gmt":"2015-09-20T05:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/?p=1806"},"modified":"2015-09-20T01:19:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T05:19:54","slug":"grace-in-the-pronouns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/2015\/09\/grace-in-the-pronouns\/","title":{"rendered":"grace in the pronouns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Language learning is hard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end of our 5th<\/sup> and 7th<\/sup> weeks in the class, we took an evaluation (my final one was on Friday). It\u2019s not a test, as much as it is a tool to see where you are and what you can do to continue growing.<\/p>\n

After my first evaluation, I learned that I had a lot more growing to do. I did really well for being in this country for less than 3 months, studying language for 5 weeks, and having a nervous breakdown at the beginning of the evaluation. But I didn\u2019t do as well as some of the others in the class (one being my tri-lingual husband who has spent more of his lifetime in this country than his own, hmm\u2026) and I didn\u2019t do as well as I thought I should have, because I obviously know so much about this language. That horrible pride appeared and I lost all grace, said mean things to my teachers (whom I actually adore!),<\/em> and was an all around Nasty Nelly for a few days.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4481\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But sometimes God uses a bad \u201cgrade\u201d to show you your need for His grace; and sometimes that grace needs to come from yourself to yourself.<\/p>\n

Once I realized 1) that it was totally okay to not by the best in the class, 2) that language learning is really hard, and 3) that no matter what level I am at no one is going to kick me out of the country, language became more fun. I spent a lot more time over the next two weeks chatting with some of the local (Pidgin-speaking) girls, just telling stories about our homes, our days, our families, and other normal everyday things. Nothing formal, just conversation over coffee.<\/p>\n

At the end of the two weeks, I went to take my final evaluation with much less anticipation as before. We did the evaluation in less time than the first one, and with much more laughter. And I scored even higher than I thought I would have. I gave myself grace<\/em> to mess up, to be slower than somebody else, and to not be the best, quickest, most fluent Pidgin speaker of all time.<\/p>\n

Even though it was a wretched thing to go through, I am so thankful for that initial \u201cbad grade\u201d on my first eval<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0in language class. I feel I have come out on the other side a nicer and more empathetic person for it.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our E2 class for Fall 2015, hanging out at the Skate Night (Hero Themed).
(L to R) Melanie, Josh, Erin, Friederike, Nina, Brooks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To all those bush missionaries out there (or maybe you know a bush missionary) who is learning a language right now\u2026 I get it<\/em>.<\/strong> It\u2019s really hard, you feel like an idiot a lot of the time, and you\u2019re probably competing with yourself and your teammates, even though you don\u2019t really want to<\/em>. Your tongue has a hard time with those new words, even though you know you know them<\/em>, and you can\u2019t always remember your pronouns. Give yourself some grace to mess up and to be slower to speak than somebody else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Language learning is hard. At the end of our 5th and 7th weeks in the class, we took an evaluation (my final one was on Friday). It\u2019s not a test, as much as it is a tool to see where you are and what you can do to continue growing. After my first evaluation, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[125,1249,448,2396,91613,91837,1196,68449,85834,637,2147,490,638,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-1806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"tag-culture","8":"tag-erin","9":"tag-ethnos360","10":"tag-josh","11":"tag-josh-and-erin-verdonck","12":"tag-josh-verdonck","13":"tag-missionary-aviation","14":"tag-missionary-aviation-png","15":"tag-missionary-life","16":"tag-new-tribes-mission","17":"tag-new-tribes-mission-aviation","18":"tag-ntma","19":"tag-papua-new-guinea","20":"tag-partnership-development","21":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1806\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/josh-verdonck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}