Happy Canada Day!

Today is the Canadian national holiday, which you might think has a silly name until you think about what we Americans call ours. But regardless, with no classes today I’m quite happy to celebrate Canada! Classes have been chugging along without pause, so it’s very nice to have a break. There are just two days left in phonetics class and we’ve learned all the coursework at this point, including clicks. We heard some language data from a dialect in Botswana that has 28 distinct clicks. At least that’s what they said, I only ever heard about 1.

But starting next week there will be no more phonetics, which could mean a little bit of a lighter load, but it’s not too likely since the other classes are still accelerating. I’m starting to work on a survey proposal for the language survey class. We need to write a proposal for a survey that is as realistic as possible, potentially even directly usable. I’ve decided to do mine in Papua New Guinea, which is half of the island of New Guinea and numerous other offshore islands located north of Australia. I’ll be talking to some on the workers on the ground in PNG to get the information I need.

But despite the work, I’ll let you know that I’m probably having waaay too much fun for my own good. The community here is just great. We’ve organized a cooking rotation so people don’t have to cook every night, and last night a lot of us got together to watch “The Gods Must be Crazy”, which features a click language. This Friday there’s a party for the students hosted by the staff, and I’m really looking forward to that.

So in short, things are wonderful. I’ve been learning a lot here, and not just about linguistics. God has been broadening my horizons through meeting some new people and talking through some old ideas. I've been thinking about what it really means to be able to hand a Bible to someone in their own language. To be able to give someone God's revelvation to man in their heart language, the language that they associate with themselves and their people. To be able to tell someone that God wants to talk to them, and that he doesn't have to go through English or Arabic or any other language. To tell someone that God is intimately and passionately interested in their life, right where they are. It's an amazing thing. It really is.

You can pray that I will continue to feel rested and motivated to do my work, and that I will be obedient to whatever God calls me to.

I confident that God is using your prayers for his glory, I can’t thank you enough!

Aaron