I’ve had a few different “parties” (aka workshops) lately – one on discourse analysis in Guinea, and one on tone here in My Language. Read on below to find out more!
Party 1 – Discourse Analysis in Guinea
“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” Psalm 126:3
Thank you for your prayers for my trip to Guinea to help a team there through the start of discourse analysis. I (along with my parents to watch their kids as well as someone else I was training at the same time) was there for 3 weeks, and I continue to praise the Lord for how well it went. We worked through not only how to tell stories, but also how to give procedures (ex. This is how you build a house) and how to try to convince someone to do something (ex. Don’t marry that girl – she’s not right for you). Let’s just say that I had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do the first two weeks, but while I was there I had to learn the content for the third week. But God was good, and we all learned a lot!
One of the challenges of having such a party (or any kind of workshop) in the village is that you never know what kind of interruptions there will be. The team has the only vehicles in the village, so they are often called upon to be the ambulance to somewhere with medical facilities, a few hours away. Yet during the whole time we were there, they only had to be the ambulance one evening (from right when we were finishing for the day until 10pm) and only had to be the hearse on one Sunday (from right when we were finishing church amongst ourselves until 9pm). So praise the Lord that He even kept these interruptions away for the entire three weeks!
Party 2 – Tone in My Language
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:10
Now that I’m back home, this last week my friend Pam with Wycliffe Bible Translators came out again and helped us figure out more of the tone in My Language. I am so glad that she is willing to be a blessing to us in that way, since it just gets weirder and weirder. During our week together, Pam and I also laughed several times, since the tone on certain phrases reminded us of songs. The phrase “he will land” has the melody of “This Old Man” and the phrase “he came” has the melody of “Have Patience,” for example. And if you say “he will land” with the melody of “Lucy Locket” instead of “This Old Man,” you are saying “if he landed” instead of “he will land.” (And don’t worry, the melody for the verbs like “write” are different than verbs like “land,” so “This Old Man” and “Lucy Locket” don’t work for those verbs. Crazy!)
Thanks for your prayers for us as we “party” along!
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