The day that I passed my final culture and language evaluation in the Bisis language was one of the happiest of my life. I had spent nearly two years soaking in the Yembiyembi worldview and pounding the language into my head through memory, participation, and heavy immersion. I averaged studying the language around 51 hours a week. To finally be approved to start Bible translation and teaching was a milestone that I will never forget.
Any historic or current missionary would testify that language fluency is an absolute “must” for evangelism and church planting. Without being able to speak and understand clearly, the missionary is at grave risk of always being a foreigner…and the God of the Bible relegated to being a foreign god (1 Corinthians 14:11). But, when someone has taken the time to become worldview fluent, when they speak with the color, the nuance, and the beauty of the local language––what a powerful tool that is in the King’s hands!
Language Learning Requires Endurance
There are few statistics about missions and language learning, which I fear would be discouraging. The anecdotal informatieon says that less than 25% ever achieve worldview fluency. That’s because language learning is hard and long. Someone who has not been trained in how to learn a language, especially a minority language where there is no language school, and has not counted the cost of how hard it will be, will find it difficult to cross the finish line.
Everyone is generally excited to start and most make good progress within the first 2-6 months.
The hardest part of learning a language is the middle months and years. Everyone is generally excited to start and most make good progress within the first 2-6 months. The ending stages, where you can start to tell stories and use the tense and grammar correctly, are encouraging, and local people generally want to talk to a foreigner who has made that degree of progress. Again, those types of people, missionaries or otherwise, are rare. But the middle—the slow grinding middle—is the time when motivation tends to fade and most drop out.
In my estimation, it takes two factors to get through the dreaded middle stages of language learning: a group that will hold you accountable and a commitment to finishing.
1. A Group That Will Hold You Accountable
No man is an island, and no missionary should be sent out or go out on their own. Missions emanate from the local church. Thus, the church is first and foremost responsible for how her ambassadors, the missionaries, conduct themselves. Good churches care about clarity in the gospel message and don’t take shortcuts. They hold their missionaries accountable.
Whether that’s time sheets––anything less than 40 hours a week and it’s going to be tough to get fluent––updates on progress regularly, or touching base with the sending agency that is closely monitoring progress. Agencies and co-workers are good to help hold someone accountable, but there is no substitute for the sending church keeping watch over how her members are doing.
2. A Commitment to Finishing
As I said earlier, someone who has not thought through the cost of learning a language before they start will usually find it too hard to see it through to the end. However, when someone has determined for the sake of the local people hearing the gospel clearly, for the sake of the God of the Bible being represented accurately, and any number of lesser reasons, they will, to the glory of God, get this language. Those are the ones who generally press on and make it.
The famous missionary Adoniram Judson was frustrated in his early years because he could not speak clearly in Burmese, but he resolved to press on and keep at it.
Someday he would turn the key in the lock, the bolt would slide back, the door would swing wide on its hinges and he would open the way to the conversion of all Burma. But the key was the language. He just had to study, and study, and study. So he resolved to work harder than ever before.
The middle stage is when you sound like a five-year-old, when people make jokes about your accent, and when you are 10 seconds behind in every conversation. Friend, stick with it! Someday the bolt will slide back, the door will swing open, and all gospel ministry you are involved in with that language will be amplified more than you can imagine. Stay the course.
Brooks and his wife, Nina, planted a church among the Yembiyembi people in Papua New Guinea. In 2016, they returned to San Diego. Brooks now serves as president of Radius International.
