Source: Everywhere2Everywhere<\/p>\n
So, you are going on a short-term missions trip and you\u2019re beginning to ask the question, “Should I work at learning the language before I go?<\/p>\n
It is a question everyone seems to ask for which there is but one answer…<\/p>\n
YES! Yes, you should!<\/p>\n
Will you be proficient enough to have meaningful conversations? Probably not. Will you be fluent enough to share the gospel? Not yet. Will anyone, anywhere mistake you for a native speaker? Never!<\/p>\n
But… Will your efforts teach you humility? Yes. Will your efforts honor your host culture? Absolutely. Will your efforts help you avoid embarrassing mishaps? They sure might. Will your efforts demonstrate the love of Christ? Yes they will.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
The missionary anthropologist Charles H. Kraft was [once] asked, “How much time should one who goes to serve as a two month short-term missionary spend in language learning?”<\/p>\n
Kraft responded: \u201cTwo months.\u201d<\/p>\n
The questioner continued, \u201cWhat about one who stays six months?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen spend six months in language learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if he stays two years?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing he could do that would communicate more effectively than spending those two years in language learning.\u201d Kraft continued, \u201cIndeed, if we do no more than engage in the process of language learning we will have communicated more of the essentials of the gospel than if we devote ourselves to any other task I can think of.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb Full article<\/a> includes tips and links, including one to the classic Brewster & Brewster article with the story about Charles Kraft. It\u2019s called Language Learning Is<\/em> Communication\u2014Is Ministry!<\/a><\/p>\n \u00bb See also Word Climber<\/a>, a great new tool for capturing and learning new words, and especially helpful for those learning languages for which other language learning tools are scarce or non-existent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Everywhere2Everywhere So, you are going on a short-term missions trip and you\u2019re beginning to ask the question, “Should I work at learning the language before I go? It is a question everyone seems to ask for which there is but one answer… YES! Yes, you should! Will you be proficient enough to have meaningful … Continue reading ARTICLE: Language Learning for Short-term Mission Trips<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resource-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8954,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8953\/revisions\/8954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}