Jan 8
In a small group discussion for married women this morning, a woman recounted the tremendous effort that it took to get here, and I finally felt like someone understood me!
She told about the work that it took to raise funds, work with your sending partners, writing newsletters and emails, apply for and be accepted to the school, pack, handling bills and finances months in advance, get the taxes ready, Christmas chaos, time with family….. and then to be transferred into a new culture without knowing any of the language, living with a new family and giving up much privacy, again not knowing the language so feeling left out of many daily things—like conversation around the dinner table…. and I realized how normal it is to feel a little stress right now.
Our first day of official language classes is tomorrow and I feel like a slingshot, pulled back and eager to go, but it’s OK to admit that it’s been more than a little stressful to get to January 9, the first day of language school.
Joel and I are both so excited to see what classes will be like, but we’ve been warned more than a few times that many ex-students look back on their year in language school as being the most difficult year of all their lives (even those now 60+ years old).
Of course, that’s a little intimidating.
So, I thought I’d log one more blog entry, in case tomorrow I am swallowed by the abyss we’ll call “language school” and I don’t get to write another update until summer.