Music

Today in our elicitation session, Mackenzie and I asked our LRP to teach us an Ilocano song. Esther had looked for a Christmas carol, but she said the ones she found were really, really long, so she went with a simple little praise song. The English title is "The Lord our God is Good," which is Ti Dios Tay Ket Naimbag in Ilocano.

Esther played the guitar and we sang it through several times, once in English and the rest in Ilocano. It's a beautiful song, and it was just plain amazing to sing it with her.

God knows Ilocano, too.

Perspective

Every now and then, while I'm doing homework or between classes at school, I remind myself to step back and think about what this is all for. Why am I doing all these classes? Why am I learning how to learn Ilocano (in addition to actually learning it), why am I learning Greek declensions - especially the really hard third declension? Why am I learning how to accurately transcribe and enter data into a lexicon?

It's not just because it's really amazingly fun - most of the time - or because it's helping me understand more about language in general... though those things are true.

It's because someday soon, I will be using this information and these skills as part of a team of people working to bring the Word of God into a language that has never had it before.

9After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."