My Teachers Were So Right

I grew up on the mission field and knew all about the NTM missionary training program. So I was prepared for quite a stretching and challenging experience. I just didn’t realize how fast that would begin.

In one of the very first classes, as we were having fun learning how to make all the new and exotic sounds we might run into, I couldn’t get the uvular “r” no matter what I tried. That’s the “r” sound you make when the dangly-thing (uvula) in the back of your throat vibrates. I only managed to sound like a cat trying to hock up a fur ball. But I wasn’t worried. I knew where I was heading and I’d never heard of any tribes with that sound in their language.

No sooner had I moved into the village that I found out the dialect only half an hour away differs mainly in that they replace all the rolled “r’s” with uvular ones!  I still sound more like a cat than anything else, but practice really does help. I even spent some time with my head hanging off the bed like my teacher suggested, trying to isolate what worked.

The practical skills we learned also came into play right away. The first thing my co-worker, Naomi Christenson, and I did when we got to the village was help install the solar system and wiring in our house. Our teacher always said that even his grandmother could install a solar system. He must have had a remarkable granny! We were so grateful to our co-workers who did the bulk of the work and figured out where to put everything and how to hook it all up. We were at least able to help install switches for the lights and operated the power tools.

But when we started having problems with the system, our co-workers were long gone. I’m sure it’s a combination of all the “TechTips” classes during the training, the many, many helpful e-mails from the Tech Center, as well as some divine insight, that has allowed me to keep it running smoothly. But I still keep waiting to do something wrong and “blow up the village.”  My teacher graciously planted that fear firmly in my head!

I’ve also had to use what I learned about plumbing. One day the water pump to our house died and we had to replace it. Of course, the guy who built the house and understood the plumbing wasn’t there anymore and I had no idea what he had done. So I unscrewed the pipe from the pump down at the bottom of the hill. Instantly, I was drenched with all the water from our barrels, with the pressure of a 20-foot drop to really give it “oomph.”  That’s when I found out the shut-off valve was in the bathroom. We eventually got the new pump installed and acquired a working knowledge of the water system in our house.

One misconception I had about the missionary training was that once I was finished in the USA, I was all trained and ready to go. It was a surprise to learn how much more training I still needed, even after coming to the field. Now I am grateful that the NTM training program doesn’t stop once a missionary gets overseas. Ongoing helps, workshops, conferences, and experienced consultants are provided along the way.  

I’m currently finishing the phonetic and grammar write-up for the Sekadau language. I keep hearing my linguistics teacher’s voice in my head, “Don’t stress about it. Languages can do whatever they want.”  I can’t imagine making heads or tails out of it without all the courses in grammar and discourse analysis. But I also benefitted greatly from an additional workshop that one of our consultants came to teach. Now that I’m using the tools and charts she gave me, I’m finding that the right process plus the right tools can really “unpack” how a foreign language text is organized. It actually makes sense!

Another time, a group of expert literacy consultants came here to the village to help us improve our program. I needed all the help I could get. I never even thought I’d be teaching literacy. But when you’re part of a team, you pitch in where you’re needed. So for the past few months, I’ve been teaching the remedial class. I still don’t know what to say when the people try to read the syllable “ma” three different ways. I’ve learned to keep tight control over my naturally expressive face lest they be embarrassed (a fate worse than death here).

One thing that was stressed during the training both by our teachers and visiting missionary speakers was that the ultimate goal of relationship building and culture learning was to finally feel “at home” in our host culture. They assured me that no matter how strange it seemed at first, I would eventually feel at home. But when I arrived in the Sekadau village, I truly despaired of that ever happening.

Everything was so different, from the things they find funny to the subsistence-farming lifestyle. But I dutifully did what I had been taught and spent time with the people, doing what they were doing.

I went along to “help” in the rice fields and botched the planting process by either missing the holes completely or throwing rice in holes that were already planted. I went along to “help” gather vegetables and picked leaves so tough that the people wouldn’t even feed them to their pigs. I went along to “help” clear a rice garden on the steep side of a mountain and spent the whole day clinging from one tree stump to the next for dear life. Every once in a while I would whack some hapless shrub to death just to keep up the pretense of usefulness. And I “helpfully” laughed when they laughed only to have them turn to me every time I was faking it and say, “You didn’t understand that, did you?”  Busted.

But recently I went to an engagement party at my neighbor’s house. It is customary here for the bridegroom to pay a bride-price. Usually it is some clothes for the bride, a sarong or two, maybe some household goods, and, of course, a ring. As I watched from the kitchen where we women can still see the action without having to stop talking, I saw the mediator unpack the clothing to the “oohs” and “aahs” of the gathered crowd. When he got to the women’s underthings, he really hammed it up, holding them up to himself and modeling them for the appreciative group.

And I realized then how right my teachers had been.

Even though we have a lot of differences, people still have a lot in common the world over. Display a girl’s underclothes in public and she’ll blush. Give a guy a chance to make everyone laugh and he turns into a clown. Watch two young people shyly pledge themselves to each other for the rest of their lives and you’ll get a little choked up. Invite a hopeless romantic to an engagement party, and she’ll feel at home on the other side of the world.

I wouldn’t trade a thing I learned during the missionary training. It has prepared me to handle living and working in a tribal setting for many long, satisfying years to come. And while I’m still not any good at planting literal seeds, I am hopeful that the spiritual seeds I’m planting among the Sekadau people will find fertile soil and grow to the honor and glory of the Father.