One day during language class, we were wrapping up plans for a trip we were taking to one of our target towns. We had scheduled a team to come and teach in this town in a few months and we were going there to finalize a few details. There was one problem looming over our heads and we wanted to get it solved.
The English teacher we had been working with hadn't been answering us like she was in the beginning. We asked our language teacher to give her a call and see if he could figure out what was going on. After a few minutes, he got off the phone and informed us that the teacher said she could no longer host our team. She was just too busy.
Our hearts sank as we tried to think of back up plans in the midst of trying not to be angry. That wasn't working too well. We were frustrated. Ok...so we were mad! Thankfully, we have a language tutor that has a really good head on his shoulders and was able to talk us down to just a little sizzle coming out of our ears. Although it was supposed to storm the entire weekend, we had no idea if there was a decent hotel to stay in and now we weren't even sure if there was a reason to go anymore, we decided that we needed to go ahead with our plans to travel down there and hopefully be able to just sit down with her and talk about it.
We had dinner with her the night that we got there and initially we weren't getting anywhere. She was coming up with different excuses right and left and none of them were fitting together or adding up. Finally, out of desperation, we started trying to use any and all of the language we had to communicate and once we did that the tables started to turn. You see, even though she was an English teacher, English is not her native language. There were things we were trying to talk about that were completely out of her realm of understanding and logic. By the end of the night, between the 5 of us: Justin and Miranda, Ricky and Stacy G, and Nathan M. we were able to figure out what her main concerns were and fix the issues that weren't really issues at all. We asked if we could come and visit her school the next morning and by the time we left, she was begging us to stay longer. Oh, and it didn't rain at all and we found a very nice hotel!
Until now, we have been living a life of constant study with very little reward. To be honest, at times it is extremely frustrating and discouraging. However, we are just now beginning to see the fruits of our labor in different circumstances and situations. This is just one story out of many. We thank you all so much for your pr@yers and all of your support and encouragement. We thank you for how you give so that we can be here. To share our hearts with people we can speak to in our language is one thing, but to be able to share our hearts with people in THEIR language is so important. Please continue to lift us up as we continue this journey and move deeper into our studies so that we can go deeper into conversations.
Many of you have been lifting up our current visa situation and we are SO excited to inform you that as of this week, everything is DONE and we finally have the correct visa stamped in our passports and are officially legal here. That is such a huge burden lifted off of our shoulders and now we can really dig in here instead of being interrupted every 60 days to leave the country to renew our tourist visa.
Thanks for all of your support! - the R Family
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