We began delving into some subjects that may not sound entirely linked to church planting, but they have considerable overlap and are very necessary in planting a church that can grow toward maturity. Curious yet? One such subject is Phonemics. This is not to be confused with Phonetics, which is the study of speech sounds in a language. Phonemics deals with the sounds that we think we are saying. Believe it or not, there is a difference. Take the words "top", "auto", and "button". What do they all have in common? They all contain the letter "t". However, if you look objectively at the sounds that are actually coming out of our mouths, they are not the same. "Top" uses the standard "t" sound. On the other hand, "auto" uses the same letter to represent a sound more like a flapped "r", which we see a lot in Spanish words. If you are an American, for "button" you probably substitute what is called a glottal stop in the stead of "t". Don't worry, I won't test you on these later. The point of Phonemics is to discover these types of things, where people of a language group say one sound while they are probably thinking of another. This means, like "t", we can have only 1 symbol for all the sounds we think are "t" and not have to teach 28 letters in our alphabet. Phonemics assists us in doing this. Unfortunately, whoever was in charge of this task for English failed miserably, and I hereby sentence him to an eternity of writing "ai kant spel" repeatedly on the whiteboard.
Another topic that builds on this that is necessary in establishing a maturing church is literacy. I want you to try to imagine being unable to read. You wouldn't be reading this right now, because it would look like a screen with some colors, a white background, and some black squiggles. I don't know if you have spent much time thinking about it, but in our society, literacy is a given. We assume that everyone can read, and there is writing on everything around us. Signs are everywhere, labels are on foods, and people rely heavily on non verbal methods of communication. How do Christians grow in the understanding of God and His revealed truth? Most of us are fed by reading the Scriptures. How will future church leaders retain and gain knowledge as the missionary hands leadership over to them? So in order to get to this point in planting a church among a people group with an unwritten language, someone must develop a writing system for it and teach them to read and write in it.
I appreciate all your prayers as I continue to learn and prepare for the foreign mission field and as I desire to be used of God in my involvement in the local community here.