We made it safely to Palmer Lake, Colorado and the kids did great in the car! We are just getting into our first week of Language Acquisition School. We aren’t exactly learning Spanish specifically, but we are learning tools that will help us to learn Spanish much more quickly once we arrive in El Salvador. So far, it has been pretty interesting. It’s been awhile since I’ve actually sat in a classroom, and being the “nerd” type I’m glad to be here! Today we did some phonetics drills and some other activities to show us various ways to learn languages.

The biggest challenge of learning a language, and I think ultimately the biggest challenge of our move to El Salvador, is getting rid of our North American mindset. As Americans we have so many preconceived notions that our language is best, our way of doing things is best, our culture is the best and greatest. I think that as Americans we’ve missed out on a lot. Today I had the chance to be exposed to many sounds from many languages from Vietnamese dialects, to Arabic, to Russian, to Spanish. Just a good reminder that the world is bigger than America and our ideas of what is “right.”

It also has been great to meet so many people learning new languages to share with others the good news about Jesus Christ and the life and hope that He can bring. I am really excited to be where we are this week doing what we are doing!