An Additional Tutor!

Recently the Lord provided an additional language tutor for me! It's quite a complicated story, but God's Hand can be seen in every detail.

The Story Goes As Follows...

Around four years ago, the Lord lead Víctor and Myrian Beñaldo to help a church in Monticello, MN, USA, to start a Latino ministry. During this time, our family lived only 20 minutes away from Monticello, but never got a chance to meet them.

After their visas expired, they returned to Temuco, Chile. The first Sunday our family went to the church in Lautaro, the Beñaldo's were there. You see, before leaving for the States, Víctor and Myrian had served in the Lautaro church for several years. After hearing me preach in Spanish for the first time, Myrian came up to me and offered her help in any way. Myrian is a grammar teacher and has learned English during her time in Minnesota.

Myrian has also volunteered to help teach basic English in Lautaro several Sunday afternoons per month. Jordan and Ben are "helpers" in her English class and have provided the Chilean children "live incentives" to learn some English, cause they want to communicate with them so badly.

I still meet with Rodrigo (my first tutor), and he has been a great help to me in learning Spanish and things about Temuco. But starting last week, I started meeting with Myrian and Víctor every Tuesday afternoon for a couple of hours. What Myrian brings to the learning process is someone who has learned another language (English) and thus has an increased level of patience and empathy for those who are learning a second language. Her skill in English also helps me ask occasional questions in English about complicated grammar issues.

This last session, for example, we spent most of the time discussing an article in the newspaper. I cut articles out of the newspaper each week and save them in a big pile. During my tutor time last week, Myrian picked one about the history of the Pentecostal Methodist Church in Chile. The church is celebrating it's 100th year here in Chile. Anyway, my homework was to read this article during the week and then Myrian would ask me open ended questions about the article.

Questions like:
-What was this article trying to communicate?
-According to the article, where, when, and why did the Pentecostal Methodist Church start?

I have found that these times with Victor and Myrian have been very profitable for my language learning. They have been extremely encouraging while at the same time very tough in forcing me to try to converse in Spanish for an extended period of time .

Continue to pray for me and the children as we daily wrestle with learning the language. It will come with time. I am thankful to God for sending Víctor and Myrian to cross our paths here in Temuco.