The New "Normal"

Man, we’ve been here for 6 weeks already! As I look out our screen window and listen to the afternoon noises, it feels like a lifetime has gone by since we lived in Oregon. There have been a lot of changes and adjustments to our definition of “normal”. 

Learning to wash clothes like the people do... by hand!

Days for us are usually full of language and culture learning, though we have begun to realize that flexibility is key in this culture! You may show up to a national person’s home for a planned language session and realize that they decided to leave to go to town without telling you first. Here that is very culturally acceptable, but to our Western mindset, it can sometimes be frustrating. Flexibility and forgiveness are two very important things for any missionary!

Using some printed photos to learn about an event... and recording the info to listen to later

So what does a typical day look like for us? Well, it depends on the day and the week, but generally, here’s a rough outline of our daily life.

6:30 or 7:00am – Wake up, breakfast, devotions, etc

8:00am – Monday and Wednesday we have official classes; other days we spend out in the local villages learning about life here with our national friends. Somewhere in here, Kyler takes a nap.

12:00pm – Lunch break

1:00pm – Kyler usually takes another nap. Clint and I use this time to process what we’ve learned in the morning. We input all our language and culture data into the computer so we can have it for future reference.

2:00pm – We usually have a formal language session with some national friends. They help us with words we don’t understand or things we would like more info on. We try to use the trade language as much as possible with them, even though they understand quite a bit of English (this is common around the bigger towns, but not at all common in the remote jungle locations)

4:30pm – We usually take some more time to process our information and data as well as review old information to keep it fresh.

5:30pm – We stop study for the day and enjoy some family/free time.

So for us, language and culture study is pretty much a full time deal. Clint gets about 40 hours of study a week, and I average about 30. Our first language check is coming up in a week and a half, so you can be praying that we will be able to learn a lot more between now and then! :)