Big News

This project has been on my agenda now for a good two months. I think that we might have to go back three months to find the last time I sat down and wrote a good, long blog. I have been motivated to good blogging recently by taking some time browse other missionaries´ blogs. Some people really have it down. But more on this further down.

The Big News
So, the big news is still big but not quite as newsy as it was a while back. Still, this being the official blog of the Johnson family we feel like we must make some kind of formal announcement in this medium.  We found out the day before we picked up Denielle's parents and brother back at the end of January that we are pregnant. God is so good and His ways are so perfect. There is no one like Him. Denielle has been enjoying the throws of nausea and faithfully munching on rice cakes throughout the night. I finally asked her a few weeks ago if she could put them in a cloth bag instead of the crinkly plastic one that would wake me up, being the nice, sympathetic, I'll-be-there-for-you husband that I am. She misses rice chex the most right now.

The other piece of "big news" is not really big news but it relates to our language school. I remember someone telling us sometime in the past something about how language school is hard but it is amazing how every missionary somehow learns how to communicate.
We are starting classes again this week though they will be less intense and less often they will enable us to focus on some of the things that can still be kind of fuzzy (i.e pronouns, prepositions) while continuing to increase our vocabulary. We have crossed some pretty big milestones in the last three months. I remember I attended two seminars on successive weekends in November that were 100% Portuguese. During one of them I was totally scared because I had to "teach." While the material was all right in front of me and it was the same things we had been studying for the previous two days I still was able to do it and everyone understood what I had to say. That was just the beginning but an important first step for me to realize that I could actually talk in this language in front of a group and people would understand me. The first sermon, the first time to lead singing, the first Bible Study, the first youth group lesson . . . it just started rolling. My great confession,  I still am for some reason terrified to pray in Portuguese. Denielle on the other hand has been helping to teach Sunday School now for several months. She also volunteered to pray in church yesterday. That girl.

All this to say, we have a very long way to go on our language skills and we pray about it every day. But we also are starting to see some signs and getting more than just our feet wet in terms of opportunities to be involved in ministry. Language learning is a complicated, involved, lifetime process. And that is just for those of us who try to learn one of the romance/latin based languages. Praise God with us. (One of the young men in our youth group is teaching Russian to himself at home, just for fun. Ughh.)

A Few Short Stories: (warning, randomness to follow)
I have been taking notes on our life to have blogging stories to share. Here is a smorgasboard:
Our fare share of funny language stories are piling up. Like when I tried to explain something about our grandparents (avós) but it came out sounding like eggs (ovos). Or when I tried to say that we were hoping to get a puppy (filhoto) but it came out as pamphlet (folheta). Such are the hazards of language learning. Both, by the way, occurred while I was driving. I have a new slogan for myself, `Don´t speak and drive.´

I found ElliAnna the other day on our bed with some of her stuffed animals and her Bible book that we use for her devotions each night. The book has pictures and a short explanation of the Bible story and a question. I don't remember what I was doing but I overheard her explaining something to her stuffed animals about "smashing idols." One of the stories about Josiah's reforms and there is a picture of such.

Idolatry is worth smashing, by the way. I can go to a number of local stores and pick up on idol that I could smash if I want. But, I've got enough of it to smash without any made of wood or porcelain.

We have always loved the missionary story, "The Port of Two Brothers." It is an excellent story and we highly recommend it. In the story Paul and his wife Jessie share humorously and openly about their struggles as missionaries on the Amazon in the 1950s and following decades. Though our missionary experience shares little in common with their experience outside of the country where we serve, we can relate to many of their struggles and joys during the first years of language learning. Paul and Jesse each had their moments of doubt, fear, questions, and difficulties and at the time when it was needed most, the other would be there to share the exact words of encouragement that was needed. One time it was "This wasn't my idea." Most often it was a little more godly. It seems that at every moment when things were tough, Paul got discouraged and didn't know what to do next, Jessie would be there for him. I praise God for the godly wife that always (well, alt least almost always) has the right words of encouragement to turn my thoughts back to where they need to be.  

A Call to Good Blogging
The blog. I've thought long an hard about what it takes to make a good blog. (Well, not that long, or that hard.) There are so many choices these days! Twitter, facebook, blogging, websites, skype, magicjack, . . . Alas. After much internal debate, long talks and research (I'm not being serious), I've decided to blog it.   

One of the things I love the most about blogging is its informality. A scrapbook of thoughts, a brainstorm of ideas, a wellspring of information- though not all of it useful. So, feeling rejuvenated in my blogging skills and renewed in a commitment to this form of media, I press onward into the blogosphere; cup of coffee to the left of the keyboard, Bible just beyond the mouse pad and journal underneath the Bible.