February: Packing and Clicking

Put the back of your hand close to your mouth and say out loud: "pill." No, really, try it.  OK. Now, with your hand in the same place say "spill."  If you are a native English speaker, you probably felt a puff of air hit your hand when you said pill but not when you said spill. Intrigued? The p in spill is known phonetically as an unaspirated voiceless stop, whereas it is an aspirated stop in pill.  Why is this important? Because many languages begin words using both aspirated and unaspirated p's or t's.  For example, in Thai, p^ha (aspirated) means cloth, but pa (unaspirated) means "aunt."  English speakers have trouble differentiating and saying unaspirated stops at the beginning of words without receiving training. So you could accidentally call an aunt a piece of cloth!  OK, if you're still reading, thank you for being patient, and, you're probably also a geek, so the past two weeks learning about phonetics and other subjects surrounding acquisition of a second language would have been as

fascinating for you as it was for Karen and me. We came away from our Second Language Acquisition training with CIT (Center for Intercultural Training) both with an appreciation for the challenges of learning a second language and with a plan and a set of tools to meet that challenge head on.  We also learned a bunch of awesome terms like fricative, alveolar, labiodental and schwa. 

If you've been following our blog you know that we will be moving to Lesotho in Africa in June. The language spoken there is one of the African Bantu languages. English is widely spoken in the capital city of Maseru where we will be living. However, to effectively communicate with the hearts of the people, especially those in the mountains, we will be spending our first months in the country learning how to speak Sesotho with a language tutor.  In order to take the most advantage of the tutor and to speed our acquisition of the language, we attended the SLA program at CIT in Western North Carolina. Both Karen and I came away with a detailed plan to learn Sesotho, a plan that fits our situation, our learning style and our aptitudes.  We are looking forward to putting these plans to work when we arrive.

How to Learn a Language Domain

One of the challenging aspects of the Sesotho language is the alveolar click which is not a sound made in English. Though we aren’t good at making the click yet, our phonetic coach helped us start making the noise. If you want to hear it, go to this video.  We were really impressed with the how the training program also had a structured lesson set and personal instruction for Grace, to help her to acquire language learning tools so she can learn along with us in Lesotho. 
It wasn't all work in North Carolina; we had weekend getaways and the kids had a great time. First the big news: Timothy is now a mobile crawling boy. He is also a scientist who is carefully investigating gravity by dropping his food from his high chair after he is no longer hungry. After being freed from the high chair, he takes up the task of exploring and finding treasures of food that he earlier dropped (yuck). Grace, as always, made several new friends, young and old. She also loved going to the "castle" (the Biltmore estate in Asheville) and to real bat caves where we saw an underground river and experienced total darkness.  Parents also forged good friends and enjoyed fellowship with our class of 18, all of whom are headed to other continents with the calling and the heart to share the love and hope of Jesus with people of another language and culture. The quiet of the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina gave us opportunities for quiet walks and good rest.  Babysitters let us get away and spend time with friends and as a couple.  We felt refreshed and blessed by our time there.

Biltmore House in Asheville

About to enter Linville Caverns

Linville Caverns Interior

Almost 10 Months!

As I write this, we are at 38,000 feet on

our way back to Portland. We will be there for just 3 days as we pack up the last of our goods and move out of our apartment. Fortunately we have sold and sorted almost everything in the first two weeks of February before heading to language training. The chaos was real, but now the end is in sight.  On March 1 we begin 10+ weeks of training with MAF in Nampa Idaho, that will culminate in our commissioning as field staff in May.  After we spend a little more time with our families to say goodbye, we are departing for Lesotho in June.  We appreciate the support

The Depth of the Chaos of Moving (it's better now)

and prayers of so many who have gone with us on the journey. We are blessed beyond our comprehension to be going with a purpose to do what God has called us to do.  Thank you for your continued prayers.