two10eleven | Brook Sarver » Lopburi

Lost in the forest of your mind

Brook — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:05:24 +0000

I had my language exam today. And overall, it went… …ok. It wasn’t awesome; although, I didn’t make a single mistake in reading and telling my two stories in Thai. But another part of the exam is to just explain how you would use these stories to teach other people about Christ. No problem, I did that all the time back in the States; or so I thought.

It started off well. I responded to the teacher’s question by starting down a path talking about some things we did back home in ministry there and how people are people and how we should be more concerned about the people coming in the front door of the church than the Christians leaving out the back door all ticked off about something. The problem is that I was thinking perfectly in English and knew what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get it out in Thai. I just couldn’t get it out. I was missing words in Thai in my story that were really integral to the telling of my story…. And it sounded awful. It was a train wreck where every time I attempted to say it in a different way, I just kept digging my hole deeper, more trains would come join the wreck.

Eventually we moved on and I was able to scrap together a decent enough Round #2 to salvage the language exam. But it did get me thinking. It’s often easy to get tripped up on words in our own language. You know, like you just can’t think of the word to best use in your situation. Usually you can easily add in a substitute word that will suffice and everyone will move on in conversation. But, in Thai, we don’t have those words yet. The substitute words. And while the Thai person stares at me trying to stumble across the word needed to actually start making sense, I’m running around the in the forest of my mind lost as ever. And every attempt at fixing the train wreck of a conversation on the outside of my head gets me more and more lost in the forest of my mind.

Ah… The joys of language learning…

lazy photographer :: a recent photowalk

Brook — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:35:08 +0000

I haven’t really gotten back into the swing of making photos since coming to Thailand. It’s quite sad really. I love photography and it is a great stress reliever for me. Recently, though, a friend came into town and him and I went out for a photowalk through Lopburi’s fresh market and ruins.

Here are a few of my favorites:

There are several more that I haven’t posted here but will invite you to see at our Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsarver

So my question for you now is, what do you do to relieve stress?

Bangkok | Diverse and Dedicated

Brook — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:42:42 +0000

Soon Sara and I will be spending some time in Bangkok as we look for some possible ministry locations after completing our time studying Thai here in Lopburi, Thailand. Once finished at the language school in Lopburi, we will move away and continue to learn Thai with a personal tutor while beginning work in ministry to the Thai people.

I happened across this short video clip produced by OMF (the organization we are partnering with here in Thailand) which helps paint a picture of life in Bangkok, the people living in this HUGE city and ministries that are taking place there. The video is a few years old now, directors mentioned here have changed positions, but life in the City of Angels is still much the same.

If you have a minute or two, this will be worth watching!