Water Buffalo envy. You may have never heard of it, but I had it! Yes, I am ashamed to admit it, but the ugly truth is still the truth. Here is a little background, in our group after you complete your 9 unit language course and successfully reach a "level 5", you receive a Water Buffalo. They are great, they can help you plough your fields of rice, carry all of your heavy objects, etc.......okay, okay, it's not a real water buffalo, just a carved one! :)
Why, you ask? Because Water Buffalo's represent perseverance through hard work which they liken to us completing a hard year of language learning. They actually give a carved statue and a certificate that states we have been inducted into the "Royal Order of the Water Buffalo".
*Side note: Due to budget cuts they were not able to actually give the carved Water Buffalo's this year but still gave out the certificates.
So, if you read my last post you know that I was given some very discouraging news from my tester right before we left for Bali. As much as I wanted to reach the appropriate language level, I also did not want to have to remain in my seat while all of the other language students, including Barry, received theirs! Note to self: learn how to make myself invisible! Yikes! I was mortified at the thought! So with fear and trembling I carried my interview CD to Bali and handed it over to be given to an official native evaluator...GULP.....and waited!
That being said, I was encouraged by several friends and colleagues, you know who you are, to wait for the official result especially since I had finished language school with a good final score. So, are you ready to hear the official result?
I PASSED!! :) And to make everything a little sweeter, they called out my name first because my sweet friend "B" knew that I was dying to know the results!! It ended up being a lot of fun as I was so relieved to have the official answer come back favorably and also becasue I had so many other people there rejoicing with me!
I hope my admission of coveting a Water Buffalo doesn't make you think less of me, I am obviously a work in progress and as much as I would like to think I am above such silliness and sin, the facts are the facts and the CEO is constantly needing to prune and tweak me to form me more into who I was created to be, I sure don't make it easy on Him! Recently I began rereading "The Shadow of the Almighty" (the Jim Elliot biography) and was reminded that, "Anyone who puts his hand to the plough and then looks behind him is useless to the CEO". That is a very vivid mental image as we all know that the plough will veer of course whenever the person steering it looks back........OUCH! I needed that word now more than ever with all of these new changes we are dealing with, so excuse me while I log off of here and go repent for my recent longing of Pop-Secret Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn!! :) As you can see...we need you to continue to lift us up!
I decided to pick up where I left off.....but more posts are coming, keep checking in! Love y'all!
2 comments:
what a great reminder to the rest of us (even on the other side of the world) re. perserverance.
congratulations to you (both)
luv, joan
p.s. we have a webcam on my laptop...and (i think) i've "installed" the "program"...hopefully, we can "chat" via webcam
Great post!!!! Having traveled in China and being a Christian I can identify with so much of what you said.
By the way, are you aware of a great new book which actually contains Jim Elliot's own words. It turns out his dad recorded some of the messages he gave prior to leaving for the mission field. Only recently were they discovered and transcribed. It is a fantastic read which strengthened my Christian life (and was very convicting).
"JIM ELLIOT: A Christian Martyr Speaks To You" (ISBN 9781615797646).
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