Why
take a foreign language? Can't we survive in the modern world by only knowing
English? The older I've become, the clearer it is to me WHY a foreign
language is so useful and why it is important to teach whatever you know to
your student. Let's start with fulfilling the great commission as
demonstrated in Matthew 28:19-20 “Go
therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I
commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.”
Start them young and hopefully I can record some of the
practical ideas I have used as they have grown older. Or things you can use to
help foreign language tutors that might be willing to help teach your
students. The suggestions I
make, can be done in ANY language. I’m
just going to bring up Spanish, because that is the language I chose to teach
my children, living in Southern California and 2 hours from the Mexican border
and meaningful mission trips.
I
have not only wanted to give my kids a heart for their neighbors, but to give
them a heart for other people groups. If that was the goal, then I needed
to equip them to reach other people groups.
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I
actually became a Christian one October when I was 15 years old. That
Christmas, my church announced that they were going down to Mexicali during
Spring break with Azusa Pacific University high school program and I decided to
go. Little did I know that that ONE week would change my life
forever. Not only for reaching people for Christ, but in how I dedicated
myself to studying Spanish with a purpose in high school. The frustrating
part was that in high school they were teaching me vocabulary to go to Mexico
on vacation, including concerts, where I needed to memorize a list of
instruments. Hello? This wasn’t the Mexico I went to! I
needed to learn the vocabulary for “sin” and “pastor”, “king”, and “giant”. 
Yes,
that is me in the middle of the group! And yes, our sign says “El Bano or
Burst”! Here is a picture of our youth group in Mexico in 1978. And
another one my senior year in high school.
The
hardest part about learning a foreign language isn’t the grammar or
vocabulary. The hardest part is getting over your own self-consciousness
and being able to speak it! After I had children, my goal became getting
my children to speak and jump that hurdle of self-consciousness.
Let
me emphasize a little bit more about how important that hurdle of
self-consciousness is. I received an email from one of my Spanish
students, who went down to Mexico with her youth group over Easter break last
Spring. Emily, a sweet, redheaded 3rd year Spanish student went down on a
build project.
They
built quite the house. Her first couple of years in Spanish class she was
a timid student, and then all of a sudden something clicked. I think it
was the fact that she knew she might be that much more useful if she was going
down to Mexico! This was in the email I received, “I really saw what a tool learning
Spanish (and practicing!) was! And I'm not "just saying" that because
you are my Spanish teacher ;-) I really saw how useful learning the language
was, and how fun it was to reach out to people with it. I don't think I
told you this, but I was able to speak to a young man from the church there.
Even though it was difficult trying to get Spanish to come out of my mouth, it
was great to hear him speak about his family and what his life was like, and in
turn tell him (in very broken Spanish haha) about my family and a bit of my
testimony. What a blessing!
Over
my next few blog posts, I'll talk about different things that we have done to
get them over the hump of self-consciousness. But not today. I've got to
prepare for Spanish class tomorrow!
