I’ll admit, learning Spanish has it’s moments of frustration. Most of my days end with utter mental exhaustion as my brain struggles to keep up with the many conversations I must work hard at understanding and responding to. Switching between Spanish with the natives and then English with the students causes many tongue slip-ups and mixed sentences which cause much laughter on the recipients end. I have learned that to take pleasure in learning the language, laughing at myself is a requirement. I have accepted being laughed at and understand that I will mess up. And that is ok. I have become more confident with attempting conversations, and I see the gap being bridged between me and my native friends. It is delightful. What a gift language learning is. I love how learning a new language can be a way of serving those around me. I came to this realization yesterday.

Many women came over to the Garcia home yesterday morning for a women’s brunch. They were all exceedingly kind. Many of them knew how to speak minimal English but when prompted to converse with us in English, shied away from the opportunity, afraid to speak incorrectly. Even after I attempted to speak to them in my poor, broken Spanish!

But one woman, Pamela, sat down next to me and said she knew a little English and wanted to try her best. We had an extensive conversation about her sweet baby, Sebastian, who was fast asleep in my arms. She asked me many questions about my work here and we each shared our testimonies with each other. Between my English and her Spanish, we were able to help each other understand. While it was not without faults and there were moments of stumbling for the right words, it was a precious time that I soaked up as I have craved that level of depth in conversation with Dominicans since being here but have been unable to do so because of the language barrier. It was in that moment that I realized how much I appreciated Pamela’s boldness to speak a language that she was not very fluent or comfortable speaking. But she wanted to know me and was not afraid to make mistakes.

How much more so should I be willing to be bold in speaking the language I am learning? What an incredible opportunity to be able to relate to these wonderful people by speaking their language. It was a convicting reminder of why I am learning this language.