In honor of Madame Estelle, we titled today's post after her! Whenever she sees Silas, she says to him, "Qu' est-ce que Faites, Silas?" It means, "What's happening?"
Here are today's happenings:
Yesterday, all of our family had the stomach "bug" and two or our children (Josh & Beth) had fevers. This morning, Brenna now is sick and Beth is slowly recovering. I am going to head to French class and Joshua is going to go with me (Josh seems fine now and I have not begun to run a fever). Kami will stay home and try to "doctor" the rest of the family.
It is getting chilly out there! The temperatures are dropping and the leaves are turning flame orange and bright red on the trees. We love all of the fall colors! The temperature today is forecast with a high of 16 degrees Celsius (61 F) and a low of 5 degrees Celsius (41 F). We love these cool temperatures and I have to admit, I am not looking forward to the hot temperatures of the West Indies when we get there!
French classes are going along well. Madame Plante told us that we are coming along just fine. I am starting to realize that there are some people who do not really understand what Language School is for a missionary. My mother told us that someone asked her, "Are they done with language school yet, they should be ready to leave for the West Indies by now?" Folks must understand that we are learning the French language to be able to live, preach, and witness to French citizens. We must learn the language exceptionally well. We must know not only the grammer rules, conjugation of verbs, tenses, etc. but also the culture and subtilties of an entirely different nationality. This is not a vacation for a week where all we need to learn is, "Can I have a coffee?...or, Where's the bathroom?" In most cases, we may have but one chance to present the Gospel to French citizens, and to be able to present it in a way that they understand and comprehend fully. For anyone who thinks that learning a language is a matter of using Rosetta Stone "where you can speak the language after just one day", I challenge you to pick up a French Bible and start translating a Sunday School lesson into English....just let me know how it works for you! Just yesterday we learned that there are 4 major ways to ask the same question and each has different grammer rule. There are also 12 parts of speech that we must learn when conjugating verbs. For homework, I spent 6 hours yesterday working on translating, grammer, etc. I now officially have what missionaries call the "language school headache!"
Here are today's happenings:
Yesterday, all of our family had the stomach "bug" and two or our children (Josh & Beth) had fevers. This morning, Brenna now is sick and Beth is slowly recovering. I am going to head to French class and Joshua is going to go with me (Josh seems fine now and I have not begun to run a fever). Kami will stay home and try to "doctor" the rest of the family.
It is getting chilly out there! The temperatures are dropping and the leaves are turning flame orange and bright red on the trees. We love all of the fall colors! The temperature today is forecast with a high of 16 degrees Celsius (61 F) and a low of 5 degrees Celsius (41 F). We love these cool temperatures and I have to admit, I am not looking forward to the hot temperatures of the West Indies when we get there!
French classes are going along well. Madame Plante told us that we are coming along just fine. I am starting to realize that there are some people who do not really understand what Language School is for a missionary. My mother told us that someone asked her, "Are they done with language school yet, they should be ready to leave for the West Indies by now?" Folks must understand that we are learning the French language to be able to live, preach, and witness to French citizens. We must learn the language exceptionally well. We must know not only the grammer rules, conjugation of verbs, tenses, etc. but also the culture and subtilties of an entirely different nationality. This is not a vacation for a week where all we need to learn is, "Can I have a coffee?...or, Where's the bathroom?" In most cases, we may have but one chance to present the Gospel to French citizens, and to be able to present it in a way that they understand and comprehend fully. For anyone who thinks that learning a language is a matter of using Rosetta Stone "where you can speak the language after just one day", I challenge you to pick up a French Bible and start translating a Sunday School lesson into English....just let me know how it works for you! Just yesterday we learned that there are 4 major ways to ask the same question and each has different grammer rule. There are also 12 parts of speech that we must learn when conjugating verbs. For homework, I spent 6 hours yesterday working on translating, grammer, etc. I now officially have what missionaries call the "language school headache!"
