Going Back to Square One

Lately we have been trying to make a habit of going to the 8:30am service at the English speaking church so that we can then attend the Amharic-speaking church at 10:30am. We had gone to this particular Amharic church during our first weeks in the country as part of our orientation. However, as expected, we understood absolutely nothing of what was said. One funny story came from the one word that I heard over and over again during the service: gay-tah. After the service, some of the old-timer co-workers asked us how it went, so I jokingly said that they were talking a lot about guitars – “gay-tah this, and gay-tah that.” Of course, they totally missed the fact that I was joking and heartily laughed at my Amharic ignorance. “Gay-tah means “Lord” in Amharic!” Ah yes, so I learned one thing from our first day at church. No, make that two things – I learned how helpless and discouraging it felt to not be able to participate in the worship service. It was nice to be there as a spectator, but that was all I felt I could be.

That was almost six months ago, so a few weeks ago, after spending 4 months in language school, we decided to pop back in to this Amharic speaking church in order to practice our listening skills. This first return was ok. The guest preacher that day was actually the director of our language school so we were somewhat familiar with his voice (although much of the sermon was beyond our understanding). Besides, it was our first attempt to jump into natural speed speaking so we expected the road to be rough. So we walked out of the service somewhat encouraged and saying to ourselves “ok, that was tough, but next time should be better.”

If fact it wasn’t. Two weeks later, we returned and this time the preacher was a young man, dressed to the Hilton, well prepared with a big Bible and sweat cloth in hand. And it didn’t take long for him to heat up. He asked us to open our Bibles to a passage in Luke (I didn’t catch the chapter or verse). Then, without delay, he read through the passage at a pace that would impress even an auctioneer. At the very end of the reading, he slowed down to emphasize the last two words “…yih mano?” Ah, that means “who is this?” I then looked through the book of Luke to find a passage that ended with this question and was so proud of myself when I found Luke 8:22-25 which ends in the disciples saying “who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him?”

I turned up my listening ears very carefully as I felt I and the pastor were now on the same page. However, in the coming 75 minutes, I heard no familiar phrases, or even words to confirm that I had in fact found the right passage. Nothing about seas, or boats, or wind, or anything! Instead, it seemed that this flashy preacher was doing everything possible for us to not understand him. Now, some of you may know the name Tony Evans, a famous African-American preacher who is very expressive in his preaching. Well, this young Ethiopian could teach Tony Evans a thing or two about voice inflection. I mean, at times he was whispering, while at other times it was an all-out raspy yelling. Then at the end of most sentences, where the all-important verb shows up in Amharic sentence structure, his voice would shoot up into the upper stratosphere, with such a tense, squealing sound that I almost wanted to call an ambulance for this poor man. So after more than an hour of straining our ears to try to pick out a few familiar words, we were exhausted. So as he was introducing his closing prayer, we slipped out the back (remembering that his opening prayer was 15-20 minutes long and show-cased his most animated vocal feats).

We slipped out like defeated dogs with our tails between our legs, trying to fight off the inevitable question that demanded an audience in our minds: “what have we really accomplished in the last four and a half months of language school?” Sure, we can talk with our teachers and hold some basic conversations with some other people who know how to talk down to foreigners, but as soon as we walk into a REAL Ethiopian conversation, it feels like we’re back at square one! Frustrating? You betcha! Discouraging? You better believe it! But, such is life when learning a new language, especially a tough one like Amharic. And, in the end, God is not going to test us on our Amharic comprehension. He only wants us to be faithful each and every day to use whatever ability He has given us to accomplish whatever task He allows us the privilege to be a part of. And He who began a good work, will be faithful to complete it in us, even when we FEEL like we are back at square one!