Finally Done Whew!
For
me (Don) the last almost 2 years have been full of hard work and the
exhausting stressful task of learning Spanish and Mexican Culture as
well as many welcomed interruptions to help missionaries that are
living in the tribes get supplies in or out and visiting with them
along the way. It's been quite an intense time for us as a family
moving here jumping right in and keeping our noses to the grind but
I'm finally seeing the fruit of all this hard work.
A
short while back I took a language evaluation. I was greatly hoping
that it would be my last one and that I would test out of the Spanish
program. The leadership of the Spanish department decided to change
the method of testing and instead of having someone do it in person
we would try out an online service that evaluates language
proficiency. So when I took this new language test I got questions
that were EXTREMELY difficult to answer and my results were less than
satisfactory. In fact, my results showed as if I hadn't made any
progress in the last 8 months
thankfully that wasn't true and after some deliberation the Spanish
department decided not to use that test anymore for the Spanish
students, and they also decided that based on my performance on such
difficult questions that I was done with my official studies so that
I could help Chrissy finish.
Mexico
as a NTM field hasn't gotten a lot of new missionaries in the last 10
years. Really it's only been a handful and of those there's a decent
number that already spoke Spanish. So since we started into this
program it has felt at times a little rusty, which is understandable.
I'm the first one to go through start to finish in about 5 years. At
times it's been frustrating and depressing, and it's been a source of
interpersonal conflict, but at the end of the day, I'm glad that I
was able to break up some of the rust and remove some of the cobwebs
to make it better for those who follow. As a field we desperately
need people. And I hope future missionaries' transition to the field
will be as smooth as possible and that the kinks will be worked out
of the Spanish program by then.
Chrissy
is also doing very well. She would be upset if I gave a time estimate
on when she'll finish, but I think sometime this fall she'll be
testing out as well. (Don't hold me to that)