Preaching in Bosnian was fun!

Thanks for all of our prayers! Just wanted to say that it went well, and I had a lot of fun doing it. Writing the sermon was about as easy/hard as ever, but translating it was a beast. Great language practice, though.

One new challenge: when I preach in English, I feel very free to walk around and move away from my notes. But in Bosnian, it would be way too easy to leave out some small words or mix up the order (you try “što nju je to dao”!) if I tried to ad-lib. Thus I couldn’t drift too far away, and did more direct reading of my notes than preferable. But all things in time…

Afterward I got a lot of encouraging feedback on my language and, much more important, on the message I taught out of Luke 7:36-50.

I just had a momentary thought that I could post the text of the sermon here, but then realized “oh wait, no…it’s all in Bosnian.” 🙂

Teen books are so hot right now!

You know you are learning a new language when you read teeny bopper books to challenge yourself. I’m proud to say that that’s what Deron and I are doing.

I wish you could see us, holding these books in hand, giggling non stop because the name of Deron’s book is Nina and Archibald ( a tale of a girl and her dog), and mine is called Gossip Girl (a story about a girl who writes a column for her highschool newspaper). I just can’t stop smiling!

Anyhow, we’re trying to take our language learning to the next level by doing some more reading, and these teen books are challenging to say the least. The other night, Deron read his first page out loud to me and we had to stop 5 times to try and understand the content!

On the bright side, we see that we’ve come a long way. We wouldn’t have dreamed of buying Bosnian literature a year ago. And though we laugh at ourselves a bunch, we recognize that God has given us so much grace in learning this tough language.

Just give us a minute, we’ll get there!

Last week Jess was sick, so I went to our Bosnian lesson on my own.  I had a fun hour-long conversation with Sandra, our tutor, about EUS’ partnership with InterVarsity USA.  At the end, Sandra said that my grammar was clearer and better than ever before.  That brought up an observation about life as a language learner…

Now when we speak Bosnian, we speak SLOW.  Sentence formation, as well as finding the right words, is arduous.  We have to try to explain deep topics using limited vocabulary, which means we talk for 5 min to say 1 min worth of content!

That means it takes a patient Bosnian to sit with us while we ramble along.  We’ve found that friends who we know better are easier to speak with.  We are more likely to be calm and speak carefully, and ironically the words then come easier and we make less mistakes!  But when we’re with a new acquaintance or someone who is impatient, we get nervous and stumble.

Moral of the story: if you can be patient with us, we’ll get our message across…it just might take a while!

Miracle?

A week ago something near miraculous happened: I led our student Bible study in Bosnian!

So let me back up.  I, Jessica, led our weekly Bible study, which was on Romans chapter 9-10, in a different language, for two hours.  Not a small victory…

Was it perfect you ask?  Absolutely not.  Was it even good?  Probably not.  But it was mostly in Bosnian, with help from Enisa regarding some common Biblical terms like justification, predestination, righteousness (pravednost), salvation (spas), and partiality.  Easy.  I think its cool that the word for salvation looks like spas as in, “I’m going to the spa… “

 

I have been co-leading our Bible study with our student leader Vedrana, and she was gone last week, so it was up to me to lead things.  I decided to push myself and see how much I could use the skills I have so far.  Its a good thing Romans is a really easy book to understand (not) and that I don’t feel intimidated by Bosnian speakers (not).  

Tomorrow night will be a special Bible study in the sense that we are taking a break to eat dinner together and attempting to create a friendly environment for our friends who don’t know Jesus.  As simple as the book of Romans is (not) to study, we’ll actually be looking at Acts 2 instead.  Vedrana is still gone, so you can bet I will try again in Bosnian.  Please pray for me!  And praise God with us that our Bosnian gets better every day!

You wanna know difficult?!?

Sitting in a Bible Study on Romans 5 (not the easiest to grasp), conducted in a language you are only beginning to learn. You’re surrounded by enthusiastic students vigorously debating Paul’s logic, and you’re scrambling to make sense of the words that you recognize in their rapid speech. In your lap are an English-language Bible, a Bosnian-language Bible (in a different translation from everyone else’s), a Bosnian-English dictionary, and a notebook for furiously scribbling down new words and phrases you learn. Oh, and you’re trying to follow the discussion and occasionally offer your own thoughts.

Welcome to our life.
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Lost in Translation

After a challenging day of facing up to our new culture, of studying Bosnian, and preparing for our weekend in Serbia (Student Conference 7-9th), Deron and I enjoyed an amazing Bosnian lesson with our beloved tutor, Sandra. As we left her place, she encouraged us and told Deron that we are currently learning things that she would be teaching to others 3 MONTHS into their studies. We have only really been studying Bosnian since October 9th, and so we left her apartment feeling very humbled.

To celebrate, Deron and I decided to try a new little restaurant near our home in Grbavica. While we were there a young Bosnian woman overheard us speaking to the waitress, and came to me asking for help. She and her friend were trying to translate a letter from Bosnian to English, and she wanted to know if I would translate it for her. I agreed, and so began this great interaction in Bosnian between Dana (Jahn-ah) and me. Deron helped by looking up words in our little dictionary. Our conversation was broken but comprehensible, and lasted for 15-20 minutes.

When we were finished with the letter, I asked her, “Hocemo li na kafu sljedece sedmice?” (Can we have coffee next week?) And she said, “Da.” And that was that! That is how easy it is to form a new friendship here! And I love that she felt comfortable enough to ask me for help. As we said goodbye, I remebered thinking to myself, “I hope that the letter to the Dean of some University in Norway communicates exactly what Dana was looking for… that i correctly understood that she needs a scholarship and not that she would like to work for the college or something!” God bless that letter!!!

Operation "Get Out" complete!

Last night we hit our three weeks in Bosnia marker. That means this weekend we get to put up some of the pictures of all of you that we brought with us. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement as we dove into language learning and got out into the city and culture every day!
Honestly, there’s not a ton more to report right now. We spend every day, all day, learning and practicing Bosnian. We have lessons with a tutor three days a week, and practice with a few very generous Bosnian friends who are willing to help us (a process that must be painstakingly boring for them).
EUS has Bible Study Monday nights, and this Monday we had two new students and, at their insistence, we all went out for coffee together afterward. That was an answer to prayer, as we spent the hour before the study praying for God to build stronger community.
EUS English classes began Wednesday night with testing to determine what class level each of our students should be in. We had about two dozen students come, which is great! In January the two of us will step in and lead those classes, while for now we just attend.

Mi smo stranci, ali…

We are foreigners, but…

Jess just called me, and we held our entire conversation (about 2min) in Bosnian.
Cool.

My first bartering throwdown

So I (Jess) tried to barter for the first time today since we’ve been here. Has anyone else ever bartered in a different culture? Bartering is scary in my own country, let alone a whole new place. Knowing only your half of the conversation and not knowing how to interpret the seller’s half makes things fun. Besides, Bosnians barter as part of their culture, and in good humor, I wanted to embrace this challenge.

I was trying to find an inexpensive messenger-type bag, large enough to fit my laptop. My co-worker Jessica (yes, there are 2 Jessicas on our team) and I were given the scoop on this vast and well-known pijeca (market). After walking miles and miles to get there, we found the staircase that led us down into the underground world of Sarajevo fashion. Once we circled a lap through the crowded cave of wonders, we found the booth that held our desired treasures. It was labeled, “Tasne 20 km” (all bags 20 marks, or $14).

The older woman who owned the booth did her best to show off her fare. Meanwhile, we were determined to disguise our identity as foreigners by using only Bosnian. Feigning disinterest, I began the barter battle. I looked at the woman with a straight face and said, “Fifteen marks only.” We pretended to understand as she began speaking quickly and gesturing with her hands wildly.

“No way,” she said. “Go look around and tell me where you can find a less expensive bag than this. I PAY 15 marks for this bag. Are you kidding? I cannot accept this. Go look elsewhere and then lets see what you have to say…”

I managed to mask the discomfort inside of me and just shook my head at her! I said again, ” Fifteen marks only.”

“No way,” she said.

Now I was faced with a choice: do I just give in, or keep pressing for a lower price? At this point, I REALLY wanted this bag. So I said, “Eighteen marks.”

“No, ” she said.

I then gave a blank stare to Jessica, thinking, “What do I do next?” I was just about to put the bag down and walk away when the woman said, “OK. Nineteen marks.” SCORE! One KM off!

“Dobro, ok,” I said. I sighed a sigh or relief. Jessica and I both got our bags for 19 KM. Was this a success? Mozda (maybe), in the sense that I did my shopping the Bosnian way. What I DO know is that I left that market completely and 100 % still afraid of bartering.

Triumph in Stari Grad

This is my very first blog post! Today I (Jessica) went with my teammate to the picturesque Turkish district of downtown Sarajevo. Our goal was to venture into new territory, and practice the little Bosnian we know with shop owners or vendors.
We eventually found ourselves in a very small, hole-in-the-wall antique shop. As we stepped in to the dark little space, we saw a woman seated by the window. She must have been in her sixties, and looked at us as though we were her first customers this year. Immediately we greeted her with our “zdravos” and “dobar dans.” After a few moments of staring silently at the very stari (old) items, my teammate and I began asking the woman our limited questions: How much does this cost? What is this picture of? Is this your shop? Do you speak English?
To my sweet surprise, she began joyfully answering all of our questions, and proceeded to talk to us for a half hour… in Bosnian! Furthermore, she spoke at a normal pace as though she believed we understood her… After struggling to tell her which neighborhood we live in, what we do, why we’re here, she made us promise to visit again. Feeling triumphant, we smiled at her and said goodbye. I confess, this was my favorite half hour since we’ve been here.