Adventures in Language

Preaching in a second language is always a challenge. There is still so much that I need to learn about the Thai language and still feel very inadequate to be doing what I am doing but I know that God has called me to do this. It is only because of God's grace and His help that people can learn from my teaching and preaching. The compliment I hear most often about my teaching is that I make the Bible easy to understand because I use normal language (because that's all I know :)) People say other Thai pastors are difficult to understand because they use lofty language and sometimes never get to their point. I am thankful that I am able to do that.

Each Sunday is a challenge, but this past Sunday was an even bigger challenge as we had two guests from the Philippines come to Antioch. Both work in Thailand but neither of them spoke any Thai and so on the spot, I had to change from teaching in Thai to teaching in Thai and English. Sunday school wasn't too difficult because my notes were in English. Preaching was more of an adventure as only practice my sermon in Thai. I hadn't looked at my English outline in 4 or 5 days, so sometimes I couldn't remember exactly what I was saying in English. I didn't think the sermon went so well but I had more people encourage me after yesterday's sermon than any other sermon I have preached in Thailand. It is defintely true that God works best when we are weak so that we cannot take any of the glory.

Since coming to Thailand, I have realized how difficult being a translator is. Just because you speak 2 languages doesn't mean you can translate. It takes another skill and yesterday made me more thankful for the people who had helped me with translation work in the past.