Language Barriers

In moving to a foreign country one expects a certain amount of difficulty communicating across the language and cultural barriers. This is true even for those that are semi-competent in the local language.

By and large we have been able to communicate more or less effectively. Stephen's Spanish is adequate and Debbie is learning.

There have been some additional and unexpected language challenges, however.

First, Ellyn's best friend here is the child of deaf parents that work with New Life Deaf Ministry, whose director attends Union. At 7, Carolina already is competent in Spanish, English and Lesho, or Honduran sign language.  (She would like to learn French and Chinese!) Needless to say, our interactions with her parents are limited to the two signs we know: "hello" and "thank you."

Today yet another language challenge faced us. Along with the other household items that belong to the church, the previous pastor and his family left behind a fan which has been sitting at church since their departure. Since the warmer months are coming we thought another fan at home would be a good idea.

HOWEVER.

When we went to turn it on we were confronted with this:







All is not lost. The ones in the picture on the left appear to be (reading from the bottom up: on/off, high, medium, low). That toggle switch, though, has me stumped so far. Fortunately, we do go to an international English-speaking church and I know of at least one Chinese speaker in the congregation.