Language-learning – ElusiveTangent – Jonathan & Bethany Edwards

Advent & Pineapple

Advent & Pineapple Language-learning, Update Comments Off

Dec 122018

Emmanuel has come to us
The Christ is born, Hallelujah!
Our God made low to raise us up
Emmanuel, has come to us”
– God Made Low by Hansen/Kauflin

Joyeux Noël à tous!

We hope this update finds you and your family well and growing in your love for and knowledge of our Emmanuel, God-With-Us, during this Advent season.

This year once again we are in the midst of preparing to transition from one country to another. It is a bittersweet time as we pack to leave this community that has become special to us these 11+ months. But at the same time we are ready to finally be in Togo, to begin serving there and to settle into a ‘more permanent tent,’ as Jonathan refers to it. It is hard for us to believe we have just finished out final exams and are in our last two weeks of class. The three of us fly to Togo on the 22nd, the day after our last class! Yes, you read that right — we found out during our time in the US that we had a little stowaway tagging along! We praise God for this wonderfully-made gift and look forward to meeting him or her around the beginning of July.

Here are some other ways you can be praising God and with us, and continuing to pray:

If you have not already heard, our truck made it to port! We are so thankful for the assistance of some friends who drove it down to Texas for us, and now we are excited to receive it hopefully sometime in February.
Please pray that God will provide a temporary means of transportation during the time before the truck arrives in Togo.
Praise God for a fruitful year of French training! It can be easy to get discouraged when we think about the progress we still want to make to minister effectively, but we have come a long way since January.
Pray as we continue our language studies in Togo, and as we refine our vocabulary to fit what we will need most in our everyday lives and what will most effectively communicate the good news of Emmanuel with the Togolese.
We are thankful that we have a temporary place to stay when we first arrive in Mango. Please pray as we begin searching for a longer-term home, whether it is one that is already built or needs work. Pray that God will provide one that works well for our family and allows us to show hospitality well to those around us.
Pray as we settle in and adjust to a very different culture and climate. Pray for guidance as we begin serving in the hospital and elsewhere. All the anticipated changes can seem pretty overwhelming at times, but we are thankful for a God who is always with us and who will equip us for the work to which He has called us.

Serving Him Together,
Jonathan, Bethany, and the littlest Edwards

Heartfelt

Heartfelt Language-learning, Update Comments Off

Mar 302018

Est-ce que sais-tu qu’il y a un Dieu qui t’aime?”

For those of you reading with no French background, that string of words probably means about as much as it would if one took the alphabet and scrambled it up into a random sentence. You might see one or two words you could guess, but the question doesn’t mean much to you.

We’ve been learning French for almost three months and, while we can understand the meaning of that question, it still does not speak to our hearts with near the same extent as hearing,

“Do you know that there is a God who loves you?”

~ A sunset from the window of our apartment – we love that we have a view!

Want to know a few neat things about being immersed in a language other than your mother tongue?
Having your ears and eyes opened to the uniqueness and worth of each people group’s tongue.
Hearing a conversation and sometimes not understanding a lick of it, but seeing in each set of eyes understanding that comes only from communicating in the language your heart speaks.
Hearing fellow believers sing praise to the same God you worship, and knowing that He understands every single word and a heartfelt breath of ‘Worthy’ or ‘Thank You, Lord’ is no more beautiful to him than ‘Digne’ or ‘Merci, Seigneur!’

We’ve realized it can be easy to (without realizing it) have the mindset that our language is superior simply because we know it best and it makes perfect sense to us (usually!). We’ve discovered this in class as we often find ourselves comparing the two languages: “Well, in English, we say it this way…” But as foreign as other language structures might seem to us, each language works for the people who speak it, and God knew what He was doing when He decided to “confound” our language (Gen. 11). It’s all part of His beautiful redemptive plan.

~ A peek into a recent afternoon of class

So even though we know we cannot learn French perfectly in the time we will be able to spend here, we are praying we learn well enough to develop friendships with the Togolese people and to share the love of our abundantly-merciful God with them in a way that truly speaks to their hearts.

Please pray for us as we have our first set of exams this Tuesday (April 3rd). We are praying that they would accurately reflect our current levels of French and that nerves or test methods would not get in the way. These are not pass/fail exams, but rather an estimate of our current French level. They will begin at 8:35am our time (2:35am ECT) and last until 3:35pm (9:35am ECT).
Pray as we continue to study and learn, that we would learn quickly and well the vocabulary necessary to effectively build relationships with the Togolese people.
Pray for all of the logistics of shipping our vehicle and container to Togo. While this is still a few months away, we want to make sure everything is in order so that we can all get there around the same time.

Joyeuses Pâques! Happy Easter!

~ Visit to the Eiffel Tower at the end of February