October 2009 is now just a part of our memories, and November is ticking away. I went into October with big plans; I was going to master my schedule, make many leaps in language learning, and get many of my projects done as well. Instead I spent the entire month fighting a cold that still isn’t gone completely, which resulted in my schedule often going by the wayside. This of course affects my language learning goals and the time I had to work on various projects. All of this left me feeling somewhat discouraged at times. I still don’t understand sometimes why God allows certain things into our lives that seem to just make life harder. I was tempted to think that perhaps it’s not God’s plan for me to learn this language, but that thought didn’t last long. Instead I think He want to teach me how to better rely on Him, and not myself. This is a hard lesson for me to learn, it seems like I often find myself walking along in my own strength instead of letting Him do all that He wants to do in me. I’m so thankful for His patient grace that continues to teach me what I need to learn, and enables me to walk in victory. What an truly amazing God we serve. One of the blessings I have seen is that Joel and the girls stayed fairly healthy through all of this. Also Joel has been able to make some good steps in language learning. He has an above average skill in mimicry, and often gets comments on how well he is doing. So we are still moving forward...trusting God to lead us in each step. Language learning is often full of funny stories, the other evening my friend was telling me a word for “everything”, for some reason it reminded me of another word I knew, and without really thinking I blurted it out. I knew the word, but couldn’t remember what it meant. My friend looked at me and laughed and said, yeah that’s potato. I laughed too. Just think how funny it would sound if you told someone who didn’t speak English well, a word like pot, and their reply was to proclaim potato. Sure they start out with similar sounds but they aren’t really related. Little victories are there in the battle for language learning, we attended a feast the other day and as people were cleaning up, I understood when someone asked , “Where is the mop?” It’s a small phrase, but to hear and understand is a big blessing. Our girls are also getting in on the language learning. The other day Ruth asked me, “how do you say this in.....? She likes to say “umbawasthitch” (this means good day) at random times as well.
One other little update, last month our community did loose a young man, he was living in Calgary at the time, but had much connection to the community. We had the privilege of knowing this young man, who had visited our home a few times, He is greatly missed, but the good news is that he had proclaimed to be trusting in Christ. The hope if heaven is such a beautiful thing.
We now find ourselves on the road again. InterAct has asked us to represent the mission at Frontier School of the Bible (where Joel graduated from). We are traveling down to Wyoming now and will spend next week participating in their fall mission’s conference. Thanks for your continued prayers and encouragement, we will be sharing next Tuesday and Wednesday, if you think of us during those days, pray that students can be challenged to serve cross-culturally. We will keep you posted on how things go! Enjoy your day in Him-Amanda For The Sewell’s
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