Dancing with Portuguese

Fale devagar e falar suavemente

(Speak slowly, speak smoothly)

 

I have always loved languages. Eever since I had my first taste of Spanish from a 1950's Berlitz Spanish reader, I have wanted to speak forgien languages. When I was in high school I took 3 years of French and 6 months of Spanish. Those classes allowed me to meet people from many places in the world at conferences in the United States.While Spanish and French are very lovely, Portuguese is a very melodic mix of accent, intelligence, and a little facial expression. I have learned in just 5 days that unlike French and Spanish it is much more difficult to rely on cognates, or words that sound like words in English.

 

My friend Carlos is studying English, and we are trying to help each other learn our native languages. As I was listening to a lovely young lady speak last night I could understand much of what was being said at first, but she was speaking so rapidly after afew mintues... I could not. If it was a dance I would have been stepping on someones toes.. When I confessed that I was kind of lost becasue she was speaking fast, Carlos gently reminded me that I speak fast as well when I forget that he needs time to hear me as well. I do the same thing to Fernanda his wife, she smiles at me a lot and is very pateint.. for this I am very thankful.

 

The lesson for me...

 

How easy we often fall into narrow mind of thought when we are not the ones to be affected. I remeber when I first spoke to my church Uncle Tony about coming to Brazil, as he is native Brazilian and works very hard to grow the mission here. . I told him that I wanted to come and meet people and share about Jesus. He told me that I was only half way to the need of bringing Jesus to people here. The other half was going to meet people in their homes and bringing blessings to them personally. In the last few days I have seen the needs that this area has, I have spoken the language, but have just barely began to understand the importance of staying in step with the dance.

 

So many people are patient with my mistakes, they smile and laugh and do their best to help me. But I am learning that all that I say, and the order of words is not always as important as the message itself. "I care about you, and your concerns are real". I care enough to look at you when you speak to me, and I want to really hear what you have to say. And most improtant I want to have a realationship with you that gives you all of the worth and dignity that God gives.