What I fear the most

To say that my time here in Peru as a missionary is a season of growth is an understatement. As I am growing I am learning a lot about myself, and some of what I am learning has surprised me. I left home excited about the chance to have adventures, to experience a little independence and to serve the Lord with all my heart and soul. In the six months I have been gone, I have had a mountain range of experiences, some good and some bad. And as I psychoanalyze my own personality as it adapts to the vast amount of change I have recently gone through, I have learned something interesting indeed. I have realized since coming to Latin America that the thing I fear the most is not getting lost somewhere, eating strange and unidentified foods, or having to live with a village of ants in my bathroom. I don’t greatly fear for my safety, which maybe odd in and of itself, nor do I fear great persecution for my faith.
No, strangely enough, what terrifies me above and beyond anything else is not understanding and not being understood. I have found myself is some situations this week that have required me to knowingly walk into environments that involve a level of Spanish and a collection of vocabulary that I do not possess. Sometimes Meredith was able to accompany me, sometimes not. And when I’m alone I almost freeze up at the door, certain that I will not understand what someone is trying to communicate to me, and thus, become a burden and an annoyance to that person. Or, I am worried that I will understand perfectly, but be unable to communicate what I want to say. I feel like I know so much Spanish, but the basic things that we take for granted in our native language become battles in another. Example: in order to replace my lost phone, I had to go to the bank and buy and official noticia to then take to the police station to fill out a report. When we arrived at the station, a nice man asked me a series of basic questions, what happened to the phone, where do you live, what what’s your documentation etc. But the combination of him being in a police uniform sitting behind an ancient type-writer and there being a line behind me made me get nervous and what may have been easily understood in another environment what a mumble of Spanish words that I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to understand. This is really where the problem lies. I get so worried about not being understood, or not understanding well that I make up my mind that I’m not going to be able to before I even try. This is so silly, but it is a significant hurdle that I have to work through. The language will come, probably a little more slowly than I would like, and I need to be more patient than I am.

So, a prayer request for anyone that’s interested: Pray for personal patience with the language, for a spirit of humility and a willingness to try doing things that are unfamiliar without the fear of failing. Pray that I would have an attitude that would embrace failure if it happens in attempting to do new and intimidating things.

Thanks.