"I want to buy a hamburger"

It hard to come up with excuses for not blogging more often, especially when there seems to be many of you that are vicariously living the South American life through our eyes and ears but alas, there are only two of us. We seem to find many ways to pass the days, waiting to become fully engaged, but parking ourselves in front of the computer regularly does not seem to be one of them. Having just finished another Spanish lesson I am now motivated to prove to myself first and hopefully to all of you that I am intelligent and that I can communicate in at least one language. I don’t know how many of you have studied a foreign language but it is indeed the most humbling of experiences. I realize that the topics we are covering have been mastered by the average three year old Bolivian and this creates frustration. The flames of frustration only seem to be fanned by the intense desire to actually communicate with people, something the both of us greatly enjoy. Everyone assures us that the Spanish will come in time but time is something I can see and count for once in my life so, patience remains low and frustration high. We both resolve to try and learn a few more concepts, words and phrases everyday and then summon the courage to make complete fools of ourselves during a taxi ride downtown or at the store as we try to practice using the words “this” and “that” as many times as possible while seamlessly using the incorrect gender of words, wrong tenses of verbs and playing Spanish charades with the few words you do know. My latest favourite, humidity= air with water. You get the idea, and so did the cabby but not without a good laugh. We tip patient cabbies well here for having to endure bad Spanish. In the midst of all the challenges of living in a foreign land, we both regularly have an out of body experience where we pause in the midst of something mundane and realize that we are indeed in South America. It is both frightening and uplifting. Before I left, I had developed a heart for those who have left their country by choice or out of necessity to go a foreign land and I can say that after only three weeks, this feeling has solidified into something more. I fully understand why God commanded the Israelites to have compassion on the immigrant because it is a life full of struggle. We have the benefit of money and education but in reality we often at the mercy of the ever faithful Ivan Gutierrez to communicate for us on important matters. Without him we would be lost and so are many immigrants with someone like Ivan. As you walk through your day tomorrow I challenge you to look around for those in your midst who are new to Canada. Say hello and show them some of the love God has called us to share. Think about how they must feel and how they, like the Whittles, feel lost some times and long to be a part of their new culture.