Keeping going with God’s help

It’s over 5 years now since we moved into Kovol. That feels like a long time and I guess it is. I feel that I should have mastered this Kovol language by now. I know there are good reasons I haven’t yet, having twins being one of them. I feel as if I am testing the Kovol people’s patience by being so slow. They are so eager to teach us and people still come round most days to be available to teach us their language if we need them. Some days I have felt like I wanted to give up, because I have such a long way to go still and especially recently because we’ve had a busy time.

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking of this Bible verse:

Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)

Well, there was my nudge to keep going. In the context this verse is in it seems to me that it’s saying: don’t do good to please people or to please yourself, but to please God. And the great thing is that even if I feel weary, I know God will provide all I need to serve him (Ps 73:26, Eph 2:10). So I have just kept going, continually reminding myself of the words in the Bible. Because if I let myself I will takes the road of least resistance; staying within my comfort zone and feeling like that is perfectly right to do because it’s almost break-time and we have worked hard these past months.

This week Steve and I had agreed for him to take over watching and schooling the kids on Thursday and Friday so I could get some more language learning time in. I arranged with a family from our village to go and hike over to a garden area a little down the mountain for the day on Thursday. It was a good thing I had it arranged. I don’t think I would have gone if I hadn’t pre-arranged it.

And God provided like I should know he would, he even provided things he didn’t need to provide; sunny weather the whole day so the paths didn’t get slippery and I didn’t get wet and uncomfortable. And also, maybe a little random or too much information for you but important for me, there were clean places to go to the bathroom (well of course there weren’t flushing toilets in the middle of the jungle, but you know what I mean).

Most importantly, I was able to do a lot of chatting in Kovol, getting some new recordings of phrases, and doing a couple of interviews. I have started interviewing outside of material culture: parenting. I thought this is a good topic, since I foresee that later on when there is a church this will be a topic I will be talking with my new sisters about.

I am also very thankful to have just gone out and got more context of different place names in our area. When people say, I go down to …, I now have a better idea of what their hike there looks like and how far away it is, etc.

I feel like this isn’t a great well-thought- through blog, more a blurb of my thoughts! I hope it makes sense to you and is encouraging you to also not give up, because we aren’t serving other people or ourselves, but God who provides us with strength and attitude to do that!