le français et plus (French, and more)

We’re now embarking on our third week of French class at Austin Community College. It’s pretty tough, but it’s been good. It seems like the pronunciation is going to be the most difficult hill to climb. We’re both so used to Spanish where everything is phonetic – not so in French. It’s quite amazing how the French language can take somewhere around 25 letters and reduce it to one syllable. OK, maybe that’s a little extreme, but not too far off. We’re auditing a night class twice a week. It’s great because we can learn and participate in as much as we want, but come test time, there’s no pressure! Talk about relief! It’s actually a pretty good way to take a language class – our primary goal is learning the language, not making a grade. It’s been fun so far. We have to be realistic with our expectations and not be discouraged if we don’t come out of the class with perfect French-speaking abilities (which we wont, we’re sure). The goal is to get oriented with French, learn some basic vocabulary, and get a good understanding of the pronunciation. We’ve already seen this to be the case in just the first few weeks, so it should be a good semester.

In other news, we’re getting close to sending out our first prayer/news letter, which will get the ball rolling on support raising. We met with Matt, the missions pastor here at WBC, a few weeks ago to confirm that WBC stands behind what we’ll be doing. We left the meeting feeling really encouraged. Matt agreed to write a letter endorsing us and saying that Westlake Bible is excited to send us out for these few years to serve with United World Mission. It’s great to see churches and mission organizations truly seeking a partnership in these kind of situations. After all, the goal of local churches and mission organizations are (or at least should be) one in the same – to effectively use the resources God has given them to bring more souls into a saving, worshipping relationship with Him. John Piper begins his book Let the Nations Be Glad with this simple yet profound statement: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.” Throughout scripture God calls for unity among believers. Its encouraging to see churches and organizations across the world work take this mandate seriously and work toward one common goal of glorifying God by drawing worshipers to him from all corners of the globe.

For those who wish to pray, please pray 1) that our French class would be profitable and help build a foundation for learning the language in the future, and 2) that we would operate with diligence in the support raising stage and trust the Lord to provide what we need when we need it.

Thanks!