Aprendiendo Spanish

A little "spanglish" for you. We like to mix up Spanish and English just to keep things hopping. We learned it from the Peruvians - they do it all the time.

Well, I thought I would give a bit of a "language learning" update. We may be improving. I actually called for a taxi today and it showed up at my house. And last night I received a phone call on our land line, or the "Peruvian phone" as we call it and began to have an interrogative conversation in Spanish only to discover that I was talking to Caleb, our Director of Curriculum for SALI - he's from Florida. We were impressed with each others authenticity.

John has been teaching Sunday School more and more in Spanish. He has heavy audience participation, but that's the way they like it. The Peruvians love to help us out with what we are trying to say.

Justin has had many a conversation with our friend Maria who helps us out at home. He has almost finished the first level of his Spanish book and will soon move into the book we are finishing up. The picture is of Justin working diligently with Noemi. Noemi is not only Justin's Spanish teacher, but ours as well, in addition to serving along side her husband as he pastors the church in Arevelo.

Kevin informed me a few days ago that he had a complete conversation in Spanish with Maria about his bike - how it was old and that maybe he would get a new one for his birthday and when she asked him when his birthday was, he told her "25 de julio".

Jason, Colton and Miranda are on the way. Jason can sing most of the songs in church, as can Miranda, although some words get mixed up, but she does that in English, so....

Colton still insists Maria can understand him when he talks to her in English, like the day I came into the kitchen and found Colton helping Maria chop green beans. I asked what he was doing and he said Maria said he could help. I said to her in Spanish, "I'm afraid". She said, "me too". Which then lead me to ask Colton to recap the conversation he had with Maria regarding his help. Apparently Colton walked into the kitchen , said "I want to help" in English - and then proceeded to grab the knife and chop away. No permission was actually granted except in Colton's mind. He thinks if he says it, then she understands it. It's a bit of a problem.

So with this encouraging news, don't get too excited. We still need prayers - while we are improving, we are far from fluency and speaking above the level of a small child. But I have greater hope that we may actually get somewhere with this crazy language yet.

More on the ludicracies of Spanish in another post.