Lost in Translation

Just a quick post to plug the book that we are using for discipleship in Chia. As a Sunday school class we have been going through it, and I also have been leading a discipleship with Javier from our church, and I'm also in the study with Pastor Jose. In other words, I have had some good contact with this book.

The most exciting day was yesterday as Javier and I studied lesson 4, which deals with the "way of man" in contrast with the "way of God." The lesson has a wonderful chart contrasting different ways of dealing with personal problems (Freudian approach, behaviorist approach, New Age approach, spiritist approach, and a biblical approach). The lights came on for Javier as we studied this chapter. "You mean I don't have to worry about the curses from my grandparents... You mean when I focus on my self-esteem that's actually sin?" He left with several burdens lifted from his shoulders because of a faulty understanding of Christian growth.

I would encourage you to check out this book in English. I can only vouch for the Spanish version, but I'm sure they're the same. If you want to grow spiritually, grab some discipline and get ready to grow!

Self-confrontation: a Manual for In-depth Discipleship.

I don´t know why, but I continue to be fascinated by technology. Now, what does technology have to do with missionary work? I would say a lot. For one thing, we can reach many with technology. I just finished reading a bit of a blog by a missionary here in Colombia, and he mentioned that he had 13 students in class and over 600 outside of class who access his website of resources in Spanish (Recursos Teologicos).

At least one pastor here in Bogota has asked me about good theological resources in Spanish online. It remains a great need. In English I can recommend many sites, but in Spanish only a handful. For what it's worth I offer the beginning of my work towards putting many resources together. At this point my work is only on my del.icio.us page, but I would like to convert that into a full-blown website in the future.

On a similar note, I've recently started using Google Notebook, which is a handy way to save all of your links, research online, etc. I'm still pondering the ways these technologies can be used in my ministry. At the very least, I'm not losing a lot of good links that I run across on a regular basis.

What tools have become invaluable to me as a language learner of Spanish? I post this in order to give you an idea about the process, and perhaps you may be a language learner who could glean some ideas from my experience, especially if you're learning Spanish. Here are a list of activities, books, etc. that have become invaluable for me:

1) A high school level dictionary in Spanish. This may sound basic, but it's much better to rely primarily on a Spanish-only dictionary, instead of an English-Spanish one. You learn to think in context, not to mention that you are exposed to new words in the definitions, forcing you to learn new words.

2) A book of synonyms and antonyms. This is an invaluable tool for sermon and lesson prep. In Spanish we have a common weakness which is called "cosismo" (Spanish word "cosa" means "thing"). Instead of describing what I'm talking about in precise or varying terms, it's easy to fall back on words like "thing." This book helps me expand my vocab and use more colorful words.

3) Diccionario Panhispanico de Dudas de la RAE. This is the dictionary of "doubts" put out by the authority on Spanish, the Royal Academy of Spanish in Spain. This book is gold. It answers common doubts that native speakers have about their language, or errors that are commonly thought correct. For me, it helps tremendously with prepositions and verbs. For example, in English the word "look" can have different meanings with different prepositions (look for, look out for, etc.). It's similar in Spanish, and I often don't know which preposition goes with which verb.

4) A Bible that has four versions in parallel on the page. Again, this is a necessity for me because the Reina Valera version that we normally preach from often uses more difficult words or constructions. It also helps to be able to put a text in more common language, since that's half of the work in preaching and teaching.

5) A Bible that was translated in Bogota. This Bible helps me know for sure how I could say something in this city and be understood.

6) Tongue twisters. One of my profs in Costa Rica gave me about five pages of tongue twisters. I've been finding that pronunciation is one of my biggest problems in Spanish. My tongue just doesn't want to obey me with some words, so I've been "working out" with these tongue twisters for a week (5 min. per day) and have noticed a difference.

7) A chart with the 11 most common irregular verbs in Spanish. I practice with this chart to the point of being able to say the conjugations at break-neck speed without errors. Why? These verbs are your bread and butter in Spanish. If you're making mistakes on the verb "to be" you're sunk. It has to be overlearned to the point where you never make a mistake on these verbs.

8) The Internet. This is surely a breakthrough in language study. Ideally we would have a native speaker who could answer every question on usage, but that isn't always practical. So, if I don't know exactly how a phrase goes, I plug it into Google with quotes. If it comes up 258,918 times, I can be pretty sure it's valid Spanish. I can even do a search only in Colombia to see if it's used here. But if it returns 7 hits, I will probably think it's just a few gringos who don't know how the phrase should be.

9) www.wordreference.com. This website is fabulous for language help. The site has a ton of people who speak various languages and post questions and answers about them. Usually someone answers my question within ten minutes, not to mention that the database has thousands of the most common questions that you´ll run into. You can add a toolbar to Firefox for the site as well.

10) Prayer. Several days per week I pray in Spanish during my devotional time instead of in English. I always have a dictionary on hand because I like to talk to God with the right words. I think that I´ve picked up more vocabulary this way than almost any other.

Well, these are the tools that I've found myself relying on. Obviously, mastering a language is not a short-term process, but good tools definitely help.

I was talking with one of our Colombian pastors last week, and he said something interesting: "In the ministry the problems are generally the same." How true. I've been noticing the same thing in the ministry in Chia.

What's the basic problem of your average Christian? A self-centered life as opposed to a Christ-centered live. For example, how do we solve problems in our household? Well, if we are self-centered we'll do it according to what seems right to us. We may explode, we may avoid the problem, or we may try get back at our family member so that "they see how it feels." I've found that many Christians haven't learned how to ask for forgiveness. But this is a prime case of giving Satan a foothold in our family.

Of course we see different variations of the same-old problems. I've had to scratch my head a few times lately. I had someone storm out of the class I was teaching in a different church for the following very good reason . . . a difference of opinion over Spanish grammar. This person then refused to talk to anyone from the church. You really can't do anything except pray for such a person.

Last night I had my first class at the Valley of Tenjo Baptist Institute on "Inductive Bible Study." The problem was that our car also has "pico y placa" (peak and license plate) on Thursdays, which means that we can't drive it in the city during rush hours.

Holly had gone with the kids to a book fair somewhere in Bogota, and I expected them to get back on time so that I could get out of the city before rush hour. Holly called twice to tell me how things were going, but it seemed like she would make it on time. I finally realized I'd waited too long, so I caught a taxi to go pick the car up where she'd left it. By that time I only had enough time to get the car back to our house before it was grounded.

I confess that I reacted in a sinful way because I felt angry about the whole thing. I asked Holly for forgiveness for my anger towards her, and had to leave on Transmilenio, which is the big bus system within Bogota. Thankfully there's a station about 5 minutes from our house, and it costs about 50 cents. I caught a bus out to the bus terminal on the edge of the city, and then took a bus to Tenjo.

Some people don't like using public transportation but it fascinates me. It's cheap, usually quick, and you don't have to worry about a few things that a driver normally has to worry about in this country (my two biggest fears are hitting an empty man hole or hitting a biker/motorcyclist).

I ended up spending the night in Tenjo with Scott because there really aren't very convenient bus routes back to Bogota after 9 p.m. As always it was a blessing to talk ministry with Scott.

Oh, the first class went excellently too! I definitely love teaching, especially in one of my favorite subjects like Bible study.

Para mis hermanos que hablan español, aquí pueden acceder el seminario acerca de las 50 razones por las que murió Cristo en la cruz. El Pastor José y yo lo desarrollamos con base en el libro The Passion of Jesus Christ por John Piper.

La Pasión de Cristo

Just a quick post about the joy of being involved in the ministry here in Bogota and Chia. God has certainly not allowed me to get bored. Last week I had the privilege of teaching the Monday and Wednesday sessions on 50 reasons why Christ died on the cross. Pastor Jose and I used John Piper's book, The Passion of Jesus Christ as a starting point for the study, although we modified some of his points for theological reasons. On Friday, I preached my first Good Friday message; taught Sunday School and led the choral group on Resurrection Sunday, preached in seminary chapel last night and then had my first counseling session with a family from our church.

All of this speaking has really shown me my weaknesses in Spanish, but God has helped me to see this from a 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 perspective. When we are weak, He can be strong in us.

I posted some photos from my trip to the armory with Pastor Jose. We went two days this week, and Jose shared a seminar with them on sexually transmitted diseases. The idea of this type of seminar is to open more doors for the crisis pregnancy center in Chia. Jose was able to share that the only true way to prevent these type of diseases is fidelity in marriage.

The young men laughed at him each time that he mentioned this concept. "Impossible!" they yelled. But what should we expect? Without God in their lives, life-long fidelity appears absurd.

As God opens more doors, we will have more opportunities to share Christ. For example, yesterday a new couple came to the center. Jose and I had the first counseling session with them last night, sharing about what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.