Back from Kenya and in 'school' again

Got back from an awesome CMDA conference in Kenya. There were about 310 medical personnel from all over Africa including the teaching staff from the USA. It was a daily 'diet' of a breakfast of spiritual food, followed by a buffet of Continuing Medical Education, followed by some later afternoon exercise, topped off with some fellowship dessert. The morning spiritual food was brought by Dr. Robertson McQuilken, author of many books including 'Life in the Spirit.' I say a buffet of CME as there were 3 concurrent sessions for docs (1 for dentists) in Med/Peds, Surgery, Community Health. The late afternoon exercise was great as we had been sitting for the whole day and the running trails at Brackenhurst are just fantastic - lush semi-tropical yet highlands vegetation that in many places made a canopy for running under. Evenings concluded with singing and then 'reports' from the field sharing what God has been doing all over Africa in the area of Medical Ministry. It was intellectually challenging as well as spiritually stimulating - something both Sally and I needed. A special "THANK YOU" to Baptist Medical Dental Fellowship for paying for our way!

So yeah, we're back in language school again. Day two and my brain is hurting. We spent most of today going through an evangelistic tract I put together that is mostly Scripture passages. Our teacher, Me' Mamela (her name means 'listen'), was helping us get the pronunciation and emphases correctly. We spent over an hour and completed 3 sentences and 4 scripture verses only! Ouch...at one point I was sure that she was wanting us to make a noise like you are clearing your throat immediately followed by a sound only made by somehow blowing air by the sides of your tongue and making a 'l' sound. One of us practically spit on the teacher trying to make the sound, but she was quite patient with us. Me' Mamela has a PhD in theology and so we are 'picking her brain' as it were to understand some of the Basotho cultural innuendoes within religion.

I had made up a list of theological terms (English) and then went looking for them in the Sesotho Bible to see what word they used. Not as easy as I thought. For example, there isn't just one word for 'sin', but about 5 that I have figured out so far. Which one to use is dependent on the context. Wow, we have a long way to go. I want so much to be fluent in Sesotho in medical as well as Biblical language. Well, I need to do my homework...