I Feel Proud – Go Wildcats!

Wecome Week evening devotional at ACU.  The real emphasis on christian part of the school's name is one of the things that makes our school unique.

Wecome Week evening devotional at ACU. The real emphasis on the “Christian” part of the school’s name is one of the things that makes our school unique.

I would like to share that I am proud of my alma mater, Abilene Christian University.  This past summer, in our little state of Apurimac, located in one of the poorest parts of Peru, we had five people associated with ACU working for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of the poor.  From our little university, located in the dry plains of west Texas, somehow five of us managed to find ourselves through the leading of God to be in one of the least honored regions of our hemisphere.  Most recently, the story of Kent Brantly, the physician who contracted the Ebola virus in Liberia, has been prominent in the news.  Well, he is an ACU graduate as well.  When we were in language school in Costa Rica, a school specifically serving missionaries, at times we had up to 10 students who had an association with ACU.  That was 10 percent of the student body from one university, all in Costa Rica with the hopes of learning Spanish so they can serve God in some capacity.  I read some Christian biographies and there are colleges that are prominent in American missionary history.  One that comes to mind readily is Wheaton college up by Chicago.  That small university has sent missionaries all over the world, and it has had a bigger impact for the sake of Christ than its size deserves.  I wonder if in 50-100 years, if people will be looking back and wondering how that small university in west Texas managed to send so many people out to bring the message of Jesus to the world.  I thank God for ACU.  Here is a link to some of Kent Brantly’s interview on NBC.

 

The final push! Will’s final trimester.

This week begins our final trimester of language school.  Many things in our schedule will be changing during these last four months.  I (Will) have come a great way in my ability to speak and understand Spanish.  However, my fluency is not as good as it needs to be before I start practicing medicine.  By fluency I am meaning to describe the ease by which words get from my brain to my mouth.  I have a sufficient vocabulary (not great at all), but the words get stuck somewhere between my cerebral cortex and my tongue as I develop an expressive aphasia caused by my realizations as I speak of missed conjugations, skipped pronouns, forgotten rules of subjunctive, and all the exceptions revolving around those rules.  My other problem is I cannot understand people very well.  In English we speak in words, but in Spanish they tend to speak in syllables.  However I still think in words, and when a native Spanish speaker combines two words into one I am left puzzled regarding what has just been said.  Often if I can get one word of the sentence, I can figure out the rest, but not always. . .  So I need to get out and practice speaking and listening. Continue reading