It’s been a pretty busy weekend. I completely forgot about writing an update on Saturday. Not only is it Labor Day Weekend, but here in Northeast Oklahoma, it’s the Cherokee Heritage Festival. So Saturday, we took the kids to a parade in Tahlequah. As I understand it, there is no reservation here, but Tahlequah is kind of the Cherokee City of Oklahoma.
Then that night, I went with a friend to watch a ‘stickball’ game. Stickball is a traditional Cherokee sport (other tribes play it too) where each team tries to throw a small ball and hit a pole that the other team is defending. The rules differ depending on who is playing, but it stays fairly simple and it gets pretty rough. So we got to see some traditional Cherokee dress and events.
This past week, we continued to meet with our language helper, two hours each day. We finished our ‘phonetic warm-up’ and have started writing down nouns and verbs. We’ll have to take these words we’ve transcribed and read them back to him to make sure they’re written correctly. This process is called ‘checking back’ a word.
We’ve gotten to a point where we are starting to see just a little bit of order in the language. At the stickball game, we heard a few words thrown that we recognized- guh-na-ge (black) and gi-ga-ge (red). It’s almost fun.
Also, this last week, it was our responsibility to do the cleaning up after supper, but this week, we’re in charge of cooking again. I help with it, but Alisha has proven much more valuable there.
One other thing happened that we did not expect… Yesterday was pretty warm- 101, I believe, and the AC quit working in our building. Since we did not relish the notion of having a sweathouse for a house, we were allowed to move to another building where the AC works just fine. Actually, despite this new building being older, we like it better since we are close to the main building, where most of the other families are staying and where we eat our meals.
Praise:
-A fun weekend experiencing some Cherokee Heritage.
-A place to stay where the AC works (especially since this week is supposed to stay in the 100’s).
Prayer:
-To be able to keep up with everything that we’re doing with the language here- it keeps me pretty busy.
-To be growing in our relationships with God continually.
-Finances (He’s provided so far!).
Thanks for keeping us in your prayers!
-The McIlroys