Pass the Unisom Please. . .

I have been at MTI for 3 days now and I am EXHAUSTED!!!!!!! I forgot how language learning takes ALL of your body energy. I am tired and am not sleeping very well. Please pray for that.

I am LOVING the classes though. They are tough and practical and for the first time in a long time I have hope that I will be able to learn Polish. Several people have told me that my age will greatly influence my language learning. I wonder if any of those people took classes here at MTI. The instructors dismiss that thought as myth propagated by those who think that it is the teacher’s job to “push” a language into a student. MTI’s philosophy is that it is the teacher’s role is to empower the language learner to learn the language NOT to push knowledge of the language into the student. We can all learn a different language; we just get there at different times. Some or rabbits learning and some are turtles. They both get to the end! I think I am the turtle. ☺

Today, we had language helpers. Ours was Luda from Kazakhstan. She speaks Russian and we were going through language projects that we can use once we are in country. It was great to hear her and realize that many of the words that she uses in Russian are similar to Polish! We had a great time.

The group here is most excellent! Believe it or not, I am the third youngest student not including the kids. The average age of the missionaries here is around 46 or so. Most are leaving grown children and some are leaving grandchildren. The face of missions is changing! I am having a great time learning from these wonderful people. I will be sorry to say good-bye to these people next Friday. I will have 3 more weeks with another group though.

God is teaching me that I am more fearful about this new chapter than I thought. I keep on hearing stories here and think, “What qualifies me to do what I will be doing and go where I am going?” I smile and remember what one of the men told me the other day. “None of us are qualified to do anything. It is all God’s doing. We are merely humble servants following our Master.” They are words of comfort.

I am at 1/3 of my monthly support for sure now and I am trusting that God will raise more “investors” to bring the other 2/3’s in the next few months. I think my estimate of how much has come in for outgoing cost was a bit high, or I am not calculating very well. It looks like I am at around 30%. I am going to try and take this weekend and figure it all out.

I am here and the thought keeps going though my head, “Alice, is this what God is really calling you to do? Are you really willing?” I am please to say that my answer is “YES!!!!!!!!!” I am confident that God wants me to do this and I cannot say anything besides, “Here I am Lord, send me.” It still blows me away that God is choosing to use this broken, imperfect, sinful person to do His work in Poland. I guess that is what we all are! He uses imperfect people so that HE can be glorified and not us. Thank you Lord that YOUR perfection is driving this! I KNOW I could not do this on my own!

I will let you know how things go later. I am praying that I will be able to sleep tonight and wake up refreshed tomorrow morning.

If you would like to help with supporting the mission to Poland, please contact me at thepolandpulse@gmail.com and I will get you the forms you will need for a tax deductible donation.