It’s been a while since I’ve even laid my fingers on the keyboard to post a blog. I’ve barely had time to return emails too! I’m half torn with guilt over not keeping you all updated and half content because it means life has been full lately. Here are a few reasons for why we haven’t done much besides crank out an update maybe every 2 months:
#1 Language learning messes with our brains. By the end of the day, writing anything seems almost pointless because that part of ours brain is exhausted.
#2 If I’m honest, we can’t always remember what offends which people anymore, and don’t have the energy to filter what we should and shouldn’t post into the abyss of social media. Therefore, it’s easier to put it off. We also have friends from both cultures on our social media. English really isn’t much of a barrier for most of our friends here, and both sides are also able to misinterpret just about anything.
#3 Finn only sleeps once a day now for 1 hour (if we’re lucky), and we usually use that time to nap so that we can survive until he goes to bed again, which means we usually have some language stuff to finish up in the evenings. Aka, not much time for leisurely blogging. Side note: I’m pretty sure that admitting we nap is offensive to most westerners, but completely normal here. I am here to say that sleep is one of the most important things we can do as missionaries. When there is no air conditioning and it’s the hottest part of the day, you do well to conserve your resources.
#4 We’re starting to get more involved. Among other things, Payton does the youth meetings on Thursdays and I have just joined a youth girls Bible study every other Saturday. With both of these comes extra preparations and more language study. Again, blogging gets tossed out the window, but for a good reason.
#5 We feel the pull of the final stretch. We just started the last and final phase of our language study (whoohooo!) and hope to be finished just after Thanksgiving. We also hope to narrow down the who and where of our future ministry! This has really given us a renewed fervor to be diligent in our studies.
We love you all and hope to stay in touch as we get bits of free time along the way!