Let me qualify that last statement. In 1999, I graduated from Durham University with a degree in Arabic with Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. I spent my second year of that course in Damascus, Syria. Since then, I have barely used Arabic. I have rarely needed to speak it, so--although my ADD doodling during meetings at work usually takes on the form of Arabic writing--to say I am rusty would be a huge understatement.
When my team heard that I could speak Arabic, they were very excited. As much as I tried to warn them that my language skills were likely to be limited and certainly not what they were hoping for or expecting, my sense was that they were looking forward to having a bona fide translator in their ranks. When I arrived, most of the team had already been there for a week; after less than 12 hours on Jordanian soil, I was pressed into action almost immediately and assigned to the photography class to help translate the instruction, in English, for our refugee students, who spoke Arabic.
It was an unmitigated disaster.
Never mind that I had just stepped off the plane. Never mind that I knew nothing about photography in English, let alone Arabic. Never mind that translating into your non-native language is much harder than the other way round. I hadn't spoken Arabic - properly, when there was no other option - in nineteen years!
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| Syria, April 1997: What I looked like one of the last times I spoke Arabic properly. |
I spent that evening and most of the next day wanting to go home. I felt like I had let my team down. I felt like they had had unreasonably high expectations, and I wanted to retort, with savage satisfaction, "See? I told you!"
My teammates went out of their way to be understanding, placating, and reassuring, but I continued to feel under immense pressure to deliver in all situations--from negotiating donkey rides at Petra to helping translate menus--and with each failed attempt, my confidence and pride shrank while my frustration mounted. I could remember random words and phrases, but always after the fact; when it was really needed, I found myself unable to recall simple words--verbs, especially!--thus, rendering my attempts impotent while my poor teammates just wanted to know what was going on.
I remember after our bus driver dropped us--the team and the photography class we were teaching--at Um Ajmal, the site of some Roman ruins, and to my intense frustration, I couldn't even figure out how to arrange a pick-up time with him.
While my annoyance and embarrassment ebbed the longer I was in Jordan--we were still able to function just fine as a team--it wasn't until one of my last home visits that I had a breakthrough.
At the end of the home visits, our translator would usually ask the refugee family if it was OK if we prayed for them. Either our translator would pray (and then translate later after we'd left), or one of our team would pray in English and the translator would translate into Arabic for the family. One of the things I had desperately wanted to do was to pray in Arabic. I had asked the pastor of the church we were staying at for some phrases that I hoped I could--maybe--string together into something intelligible. But such was my lack of confidence and my overall discouragement that I never piped up to volunteer a prayer.
On our second to last home visit, things were going as normal. We were sitting on blankets and thin mattresses in the living room (which almost certainly also functioned as a bedroom at night), drinking hot, sweet tea, and talking to a family. One of the women had just come back from the police station, asking for news of her husband, who, it turned out, had been arrested and returned to the refugee camp where the family was supposed to be, and she now faced the desperately difficult choice: to stay put and be separated, along with her children, from her husband, or to return to the hardship and despair in the refugee camp in order to keep her family together. Despondency was etched into her face as she sat with her sister and mother-in-law. Yet for all their tragedy and trauma, this family still managed to graciously host us and show genuine interest in us. As the time to leave came to an end, Mike, our team leader, said, "Jonathan - this is your last chance to pray in Arabic."
For a moment I sat there, paralyzed with indecision: could I do this? What if I messed up? What if "heart" came out as "dog" (the words are very similar in Arabic)? With sudden understanding, I realized that this family needed comfort, and not the kind of comfort that we could provide. It wasn't going to be about me.
And so I prayed.
I have no idea whether what came out was correct or appropriate, and I can't even remember what I was trying to say or communicate other than an overwhelming desire for the family to know God's peace, but in that moment, I felt that I finally understood that I had to take the attitude of a servant when it came to my language and my proficiency in it. When I finally let go of my ego and my desire to be "the man", it allowed me to be used.
I had gone to Jordan to serve, but when it came to my language skills, in my arrogance, even knowing how difficult it was going to be, I did not take that same approach. I allowed my pride and shattered confidence to impact how I served. In fact, I was trying--pretty hopelessly--to lead, not serve. And, looking back, it seems like the times when the team and others around me benefited the most from my Arabic was when I struggled the most.
Struggling, as I tell my students on an almost daily basis, is important. It teaches us valuable lessons. However, struggling with a proud heart and a fragile ego is not likely to go well for us. Only when we let those things go and give ourselves completely to the task at hand will we see the unlikely and unexpected fruits of our toil.
