New prayer requests...
Time to get to eye clinic and have Elijah's eyes checked-he defintely needs glasses.
Moriah's spacer has moved so her teeth are bothering her
Jinni's right ankle totally heal from 6 week old 'severe sprain'.
RJ's science project come together and Spanish would go well.
Kees' stress test properly interpreted by doctors.
Mumsy Shafer continue to recover in her Nursing Care facility.
All-weather tires, waiting for sale prices.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
"Comprehension +1"
We have completed our 1st week of Culture and Language Acquisition practicum. It has been great. Some of the things we've learned about the Dutch culture, from Kees, are helping us understand why some of the words and phrases he's teaching us are used the way they are. Kees has been just wonderful. His willingness to learn something new has been a definite motivator for me, Roland. Each 2 hour session brings excitement knowing we will spend time with our new friend. So far he has taught us over 200 nouns, adjectives, and verbs combined. This week we are scheduled to learn more verbs and nouns, plus we're going to add numbers and adjectives, too. He has also taught us more than 15 necessary, practical expressions. One we've used frequently (you might even guess), "Vat is dit?" Another is "Dankje vell!" Think you can figure those out? You may have an ability to learn language if you can.
We are so blessed to start each session with a word of prayer. Kees has even taken some time and provided some scripture reading from a couple of Dutch Bibles (pronounced the same). Jinni and I don't understand all of what's being read but we're able to pick out some words already. God has amazed us with what we have learned in just a few days about His faithfulness in creating languages which communicate culture. We are so thankful that He has taken the time to make sure His message will be clear in them all. God communicates and He desires that everyone has the chance to hear His message for themselves.
Quite a bit of our time is spent using our computer to 'file' all the day's data. We must transfer our recorded sessions from our digital voice recorder to our laptop PC first. After thevoice recordings are on the computer we begin the processing work. The recordings must be edited before they are filed with the CLAware application. The end result is an embedded sound file with phonetically transcribed text with which we do our review. Once the review information is complete the CLAware application allows us to file our phonetics into a lexicon. The lexicon is a dictionary, sort of, that associates the phonetic rendition of the data to a rough translation provided by Kees. All tolled we have spent anywhere between 4 and 9 hours - depending on the recording quality - completing the processing tasks. It all pays off because we have clean audio files to use in our review stage of the whole program.
We thank the Lord for the software, the recorder, the laptop, the CLA practicum program, and Kees! We also know we are being prayed with and for, which makes us ever so much more grateful for this experience. God, in His faithfulness, has brought folks alongside to ensure we will complete this stage of preparation - seeing Him as our Sufficient One.
Thank you for your participation and partnership with us while we train, so that every nation and language will hear the GOOD NEWS...
Roland (for the Shafers)
2 Cor 4-5
We have completed our 1st week of Culture and Language Acquisition practicum. It has been great. Some of the things we've learned about the Dutch culture, from Kees, are helping us understand why some of the words and phrases he's teaching us are used the way they are. Kees has been just wonderful. His willingness to learn something new has been a definite motivator for me, Roland. Each 2 hour session brings excitement knowing we will spend time with our new friend. So far he has taught us over 200 nouns, adjectives, and verbs combined. This week we are scheduled to learn more verbs and nouns, plus we're going to add numbers and adjectives, too. He has also taught us more than 15 necessary, practical expressions. One we've used frequently (you might even guess), "Vat is dit?" Another is "Dankje vell!" Think you can figure those out? You may have an ability to learn language if you can.
We are so blessed to start each session with a word of prayer. Kees has even taken some time and provided some scripture reading from a couple of Dutch Bibles (pronounced the same). Jinni and I don't understand all of what's being read but we're able to pick out some words already. God has amazed us with what we have learned in just a few days about His faithfulness in creating languages which communicate culture. We are so thankful that He has taken the time to make sure His message will be clear in them all. God communicates and He desires that everyone has the chance to hear His message for themselves.
Quite a bit of our time is spent using our computer to 'file' all the day's data. We must transfer our recorded sessions from our digital voice recorder to our laptop PC first. After thevoice recordings are on the computer we begin the processing work. The recordings must be edited before they are filed with the CLAware application. The end result is an embedded sound file with phonetically transcribed text with which we do our review. Once the review information is complete the CLAware application allows us to file our phonetics into a lexicon. The lexicon is a dictionary, sort of, that associates the phonetic rendition of the data to a rough translation provided by Kees. All tolled we have spent anywhere between 4 and 9 hours - depending on the recording quality - completing the processing tasks. It all pays off because we have clean audio files to use in our review stage of the whole program.
We thank the Lord for the software, the recorder, the laptop, the CLA practicum program, and Kees! We also know we are being prayed with and for, which makes us ever so much more grateful for this experience. God, in His faithfulness, has brought folks alongside to ensure we will complete this stage of preparation - seeing Him as our Sufficient One.
Thank you for your participation and partnership with us while we train, so that every nation and language will hear the GOOD NEWS...
Roland (for the Shafers)
2 Cor 4-5
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Culture and Language Acquisition
(6 weeks of Practical Techniques)
Jinni and I are currently in our first few days of the most challenging period of this semester. It is called CLA Practicum. We are assigned a bi-lingual Language helper, a first generation speaker, from another country and culture. This precious person will spend the next 6 weeks with us (two hours a session), working with the CLA method of learning a culture and language. Our assigned a language helper is from the Nederlands. We have already spent some time setting up our meeting time, gathering a few culture related photographs.
Our first session has come and gone. We have had two hours with Kees (pronounced Kase). He is a wonderfully friendly guy from Haarlem. He recognized some of the photos we had chosen for our first session. That was a fun time as he explained what the picture contained. He is, by self admission, more than willing to help us and maybe even a little too willing to talk more than we might need :-). We spent several minutes getting to know him which will continue over our time together.
Lots of parts to this program are intended to give us as close to a National Culture Language Acquisition program as possible. Some of the things we have to work through is managing the four primary facets of the CLA method (Plan, Practice, Process, and Participate), organizing our daily routing around the C/L sessions and Culture events required in the course, and arranging for the care of our kids while we are immersed in the practicum. We praise the Lord for the members of our culture teams, they too have to partner with us in ensuring
we all make it through this time so we are partnered to work together.
Please pray for us as we have more than this next six weeks of classes on our plates. Elijah has been invited to be a participant in a spelling bee. RJ, Jinni, me, and a fellow classmate are performing 12/3 and 12/10, a Christmas program, I have the privilege of leading the worship services at the church we're attending (Rock Mills Fellowship Baptist Church), Jinni gets to lead the praise music time for our Monday morning Devotional time on campus this month, and I get to do the same 12/17 at Rock Mills.
Of course our kids must not be shorted during all of this either.
Thank you for your partnership in prayer with us as we draw this semester to a close with this busy, busy ministry schedule. We are excited and we realize it will be stressful. What a privilege to know that we have been given this opportunity to see our Lord in a mighty way and better grasp that He walks with us through every twist and turn and circumstance. We are thankful that we have the honor to pray with you, too. Until next time, or as the Dutch might say it, "Tot Zeens".
until the unreached have heard...
Roland (for the family)
'For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For God, who said "Let light shine out of darkness," is the one who shined in our hearts to give us the light of the glorious knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.'
(2Co 4:5-7)
(6 weeks of Practical Techniques)
Jinni and I are currently in our first few days of the most challenging period of this semester. It is called CLA Practicum. We are assigned a bi-lingual Language helper, a first generation speaker, from another country and culture. This precious person will spend the next 6 weeks with us (two hours a session), working with the CLA method of learning a culture and language. Our assigned a language helper is from the Nederlands. We have already spent some time setting up our meeting time, gathering a few culture related photographs.
Our first session has come and gone. We have had two hours with Kees (pronounced Kase). He is a wonderfully friendly guy from Haarlem. He recognized some of the photos we had chosen for our first session. That was a fun time as he explained what the picture contained. He is, by self admission, more than willing to help us and maybe even a little too willing to talk more than we might need :-). We spent several minutes getting to know him which will continue over our time together.Lots of parts to this program are intended to give us as close to a National Culture Language Acquisition program as possible. Some of the things we have to work through is managing the four primary facets of the CLA method (Plan, Practice, Process, and Participate), organizing our daily routing around the C/L sessions and Culture events required in the course, and arranging for the care of our kids while we are immersed in the practicum. We praise the Lord for the members of our culture teams, they too have to partner with us in ensuring
we all make it through this time so we are partnered to work together.Please pray for us as we have more than this next six weeks of classes on our plates. Elijah has been invited to be a participant in a spelling bee. RJ, Jinni, me, and a fellow classmate are performing 12/3 and 12/10, a Christmas program, I have the privilege of leading the worship services at the church we're attending (Rock Mills Fellowship Baptist Church), Jinni gets to lead the praise music time for our Monday morning Devotional time on campus this month, and I get to do the same 12/17 at Rock Mills.
Of course our kids must not be shorted during all of this either.Thank you for your partnership in prayer with us as we draw this semester to a close with this busy, busy ministry schedule. We are excited and we realize it will be stressful. What a privilege to know that we have been given this opportunity to see our Lord in a mighty way and better grasp that He walks with us through every twist and turn and circumstance. We are thankful that we have the honor to pray with you, too. Until next time, or as the Dutch might say it, "Tot Zeens".
until the unreached have heard...
Roland (for the family)
'For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For God, who said "Let light shine out of darkness," is the one who shined in our hearts to give us the light of the glorious knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.'
(2Co 4:5-7)
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