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 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 nine 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 ongoing process is certainly painful, yet I can see progress! The last two sermons I translated only took around five hours each to translate!  Now if I could just stop making all those mistakes!

Mark Hale, Portugal