Humility and Language

Have you ever wanted to go back and become a child again? The carefree life may appeal, but linguistically, few would desire reverting to our childhood communication abilities. When we arrived in Japan, though, that is exactly what happened.
 
Five years ago, at the beginning of our first time in Japan, we accidentally bought a strange mayonnaise and mystery meat sandwich for breakfast due to our inability to read the package. We also went to the wrong places at the wrong times, inconvenienced others, and bought other strange items by accident thanks to our Japanese skills.
 
This time, we arrived understanding Japanese better, yet we still make mistakes. We have taken the wrong amount of medicine, turned in documents at the wrong time, and continue struggling to understand the main points during the Sunday morning sermon. When someone asks us to pray before a meal, we feel helpless to express ourselves and praise God with our limited Japanese. Living in a culture that speaks a different language is humbling.

​We graduated with Bible degrees, yet we consider it a victory if we can successfully understand a verse in Japanese during Sunday School. We enjoy reading and studying new things, yet we struggle to understand Japanese picture books. We love talking with people and getting to know them deeply, yet our Japanese conversations die after a handful of sentences. We sometimes want to shout, “I promise we are much smarter than this!”
 
More than all of that, living here is exactly where God placed us. We have weaknesses. We make mistakes. We become embarrassed. We have our pride shattered repeatedly. Through all of this, God’s strength, glory, wisdom, sovereignty, mercy, and grace are clearly displayed. Our weaknesses make us strong because God gives us the power to accomplish what He has called us to do. We would not trade that for anything in this created universe.