From the Field

Sometimes these two words can be confused with each other.   One is the act of emerging from something and the other is the act of deeply engaging or diving into something possibly to the point of saturation. 

Well, I find that sometimes things emerge when we immerse ourselves in a new culture: new discoveries, a new sense of self, and new loves.  Sometimes this can come in the form of a new way of eating, for example, last night for dinner we made the following two Croatian salads, which we’ve grown to love:

• Bean salad – We used brown and white beans with pumpkin oil, salt, pepper and a mild onion
• Tomato/Cucumber salad mixed with Olive Oil, mild onion, salt pepper and topped with a Croatian cheese

What also emerges from my immersion is sometimes a new appreciation for parts of the culture I’ve from, but also appreciation for new aspects of a culture that bring new life to me, new perspective to my way of thinking, a broadening of my horizons. 

And sometimes it comes in the form of relationship building, or understanding a new concept of time, or just learning new ways of doing life. 

And I love the mutuality that can come with integrating into a culture, where those in the culture accept us and want us to be a part of it with them, but also want us to share our culture with them.  I’m looking forward to learning more and more about this new culture, what ministry and church will look like and how God changes me in the process.

Betsy 

Today was my first time attending a Croatian church service.   Thus, my first time singing worship songs in Croatian.  I found that even though I didn’t know what I was saying, the spirit was moving.  God gave me an image of a river and I prayed this while worshiping in Croatian today:

God, may you be a river that runs through this nation giving life to those places that have dried up or are dying.  We’re thirsty for you God!  Wash us, carry us, flow through us.  May your river bring life, may it revive us. 

They also asked us to come in the middle of them so they could pray for us.  It was awesome to feel their support and excitement about God bringing more laborers to Croatia.  They prayed for our future church, our current team, and for our family.  It was truly a blessing being there. 

Betsy

In our language class there are 13 countries represented and 15 people!!  We are currently in language study about 3 hours a day, every day, until the middle of June.  We just finished our first 2 weeks and only have 13 more to go!!   😐

So far though, we really are enjoying our language class!!  We have found that learning French has helped us learn another language.   Almost every day in public, we try to use what we’ve learned in class.  We can order at restaurants and can have basic store interactions.  

After 2 weeks of language learning, we know how to say: who we are, where we’re from, how are you,  how we’re doing, what our names are, our age, numbers, what our professions are and how to ask what someone else does.  Our vocabulary now consists of:  20 or so animals, several professions and countries, family terms, basic food items, several other basic and random nouns, like church and walnuts, and important things like how to order a rotisserie chicken!!

Even though we are feeling the weight and tiredness of learning our third language, we have truly enjoyed it thus far, and look forward to the big adventure ahead!!