Learning About New Places

A wonderful side effect of having a son on a mission in a foreign place is it piques our family interest in a new place, culture and people and it is wonderful! There are three languages, of the 253 dialects in India, he is learning about in the area he is in right now: Telugu, Hindi and Tamul,…. He talks a lot about the Telugu speaking people and said he is learning to write his name in their language. (Actually I re-read the email and it actually said Hindi, I'll need to pay better attention in the future.) He has also said that he is already "losing" his English speaking skills and he has only been there 2 months. He has spent time in Bangalore, and about 7 weeks in Rajamundry, and was just transferred to Kakinada. He has been lucky enough to tutor others in English writing. English grammar and theirs is so different he helped a gal rewrite an entire paper so she would have a template. He is an English writing "pro", I used to have him correct my college papers he is so good at it, so I would imagine that adjusting his grammar to another language will be a challenge that I'm sure he is up to.

And of course we thought it would be fun to learn how to write a few things in their language, can you blame us? Look how beautiful it is! Now if only we can copy it with our own handwriting, either way it will be fun ;) so this one is in Telugu.

And this purple writing is in Hindi, but I wonder if Google-translate is really that accurate. I've got an email out with that question pending. When I look a this language it looks like it is written right to left instead of left to right, if that is so does that mean how I put words into the translation box should be in a different order? More curious things to learn. I love language.

I really LOVE the picture below, it brings tears to my eyes and joy to my soul. For many reasons but I'll only list a few. I feel blessed to have a son who has chosen to devote two years of his life to guiding others to Jesus Christ. I am thankful for the reminder as depicted here of this missionary clothed in the Armor of God, and the protection it brings. And it seems silly but, the bike in the background makes me smile because of the explanation he gave us of the modes of transportation there. I'm thankful he has fast reflexes, a keen eye and ear, and knows how to navigate traffic while moving so fast. He said there are not laws for the roads like there are here, but rules of the road become very clear as the cars and buses move very quickly past his bike handlebar- just six inches away.

We've learned about several holidays they celebrate there. That they have over 3000 Gods they worship in some of those celebrations and they are big and fun. Mike said the most recent one was like our Independence Day on steroids with lots of fireworks and it lasted all week, that one is called Diwali. It's a celebration for the goddess of wealth, Mikaela said. He said he LOVED it! It did slow down the missionary work however because life comes to a kind of standstill during these celebrations. And since I really want to post this tonight….I'll add more to this post later with the names of the other 2 languages and the holidays he told us about.