Stuttering and Jawing

Just some photos of the work that has been going on to ready the ground for our new partners’  house… Oh, and the Frankenegg that I a friend brought us as a special treat (‘twas no ordinary chicken, ‘twas no ordinary egg.)

Tegidi Tegidi Tagam   - literally: Short stopped like, short stopped like I talked.

Our son Tim likes to say “I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it.” So it is with us and the Pal language. Or rather, we know what we want to say, its just that people feel themselves growing old as we try to put together how to say it. Remembering the right tense and aspect and connectors and then actually getting our mouths to form the sounds has made for more than one pulled mental muscle. (The Pal language has a couple of difficult sounds – one of which is the combination of a g and a w. Also the ng sound appears very frequently…) Over a year into language study and I still cannot for the life of me pronounce the Pal word for ‘ball’ without several attempts (I don’t know how their kids make it out of preschool).

Please pray for us that we are able to grow in relationship and communication ability – especially in these next three months.

Three years ago, this young man (along with his father) came with us on one of our first forays into Pal.

Chew on my thumbs please.

The other day a man showed up at our house just at the start of the day. He had dislocated his jaw the previous evening and was experiencing  lots of pain and the inability to eat the main staple food here (tough yams).  We are not experts in matters of facial structure, at the same time, we desire to help those who are around here. After doing some reading and explaining the process to our friend, I padded my thumbs up and did the best I could at wrenching his jaw back into place. Neither of us was too comfortable during the whole ordeal.  Anyway, we hope that this story is an encouragement to you to keep praying for us daily as we are often in over our heads.

Thanks very much for your partnership

Nate for the fam

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