putting our training into practice...

We are finishing up a class that makes us say...WOW.

This class is called CLA Practicum.  Here's what that stands for:

CLA= Culture and Language Acquisition

Practicum= putting it into practice!

So these past few months, we have been in lots of classes regarding new cultures, foreign languages, teamwork, worldview of other cultures, how to be intentional, time management, church planting issues...etc etc etc.

Sometimes it is easy to sit through all those classes and think, wow.  This is all such amazing teaching, but how will I ever remember it??

It can be overwhelming, and the truth is, we do forget a lot of what we have been taught.

So this class that we are finishing up right now has been six weeks of putting all of that teaching into practice!

I will try to describe the class in a nutshell.  Basically, a lot of our teachers are involved in recreating a foreign tribal culture.  This culture actually exists in the world, so it is based on real customs, beliefs, etc.  Almost all of the teachers who are involved have been overseas and did just what we are being trained to do.  So they know a lot, and we are so priveliged to learn from them!

Just a few things that we learned from this simulation:

• Language skills
• Learning culture (this one should be all caps, underlined and italics...it is HUGE!!)
• Talking through how this culture will affect Bible teaching and church planting
• Teamwork!
• Humility :)

We would go into the mock "village" and have sessions with our "language helper".  It is so difficult for me to describe this class to you guys, so forgive me...just trust me that we LEARNED.  SO.  MUCH.

Here we are, in one of our culture/language sessions with our helper

One of the many team discussions that we had regarding this tribal culture...a very VERY small taste of what we will someday be doing with our teammates in our "real" tribe.

Thanks for your prayers!  We feel them.