Prayer Letter
July 2008
Dear Praying Friends,
I sit in the doctor's office while he digs deeply into the open
wound in my chest. With tweezers, pliers and a crowbar, he digs
around my insides, tearing out things that I think I need. "Um,
isn't that piece vital?" I whine, "Hey, I KNOW I needed that one!" I
yelp as he rips out something else. But the doctor is relentless,
excavating deeper into the depths of my once, intact body. The pain
is almost unbearable. When he is finished, he sits back contentedly,
my life's blood splattered all over him and smiles. "Finished!" he
cheerily says with relish, as if the last hour and a half was all
joy and light instead of yet another of my twice weekly torture
sessions with the good doctor.
What am I talking about? Language study! After a year and a half of
studying the Portuguese language, I have twice preached in
Portuguese. It took me 9 hours of brain bleeding toil to translate
my first sermon, word for word into Portuguese. Then I took it to
class, where my professor proceeded to rip it apart and put it back
together properly. It is a painful and humbling experience, but so
necessary if I am to accomplish what God has called us to do here in
southern Portugal: To preach His word and establish Baptist
churches.
This on going process is certainly painful, yet I can see progress!
The last two sermons I translated only took around 5 hours each to
translate! Now if I could just stop making all those mistakes.... :)
THANK YOU for your prayers for my language study!!
Learning the lingo,
Mark Hale
"Praying
always ... for all
saints and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my
mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the Gospel."
Ephesians 6:18-19
