I still can't believe I live in Italy now. It's different from anything I've ever known or any place I've ever lived, but I love it. I love the people I work with with and new friends and the food and the coffee and the climate and my apartment and the fact that I live within a walk or a metro ride from a vast array of ancient, architectural beauty.
Some adjustments are tough, and I guess I'm still in the "honeymoon phase," but all in all it's already starting to feel like home.
One of the major challenges, though, is learning a new language. I'm amazed by so many people I've met here who can speak multiple languages. Apparently it's not uncommon for Europeans to learn Italian, English and French, for example, from a very young age. Or German. Or Spanish. And here I am making what often feels like a pitiful attempt to be merely conversational in something other than what I've spoken all my life.
So I've struggled with that a bit. I realize you can't learn a new language overnight (and hey, appropriately enough, Rome wasn't built in a day, right?), but I can't tell you how frustrating it is not to be able to communicate what you're thinking in a language the people around you will understand. And I often feel mentally deficient when everyone from small children to sweet "nonnas" (grandmothers) start gibbering away to me in Italian and I can barely recognize one word. So I am typically pretty oblivious to what's going on around me and I usually feel intellectually inadequate, to put it nicely.
In an effort not to be taken for a deaf-mute for the next two years, I'm going to language school. Fittingly, my school is called "Torre di Babele," which in English is "The Tower of Babel." It really is perfectly named, considering the diversity of the students there. In my class alone, there is a Russian lady, a Libyan medical student, a Japanese girl, a Turkish guy, a French girl, a Brazilian lady, a man from Belgium, and a Nigerian nun. My teacher doesn't speak English, so asking questions in English doesn't do any good. None of us can really speak our heart language with anyone else in the class.
That's crazy, isn't it? It really does make me think of the Tower of Babel story in the Bible and how the thousands of different languages originally came to be.
In Genesis 11, the Bible tells us that "the whole world had one language and a common speech." But their pride and vaulting ambition was their downfall. They tried to build a tower that would reach to the heavens so they could make a name for themselves.
They sought their own glory and forgot that all glory belongs to the God of the universe.
To display His power and teach them a lesson in humility, "the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."
Can you imagine what that must have been like for those people? To be able to understand each other perfectly one minute and the next everyone is babbling seemingly incoherently? I'm sure they felt as frustrated as I do when I don't know the Italian word for the thought I wish to express or question I want to ask or explanation I want to give.
There are many things I learn from this story. One being that it's ridiculous to try to go above God's head or accomplish something apart from him or for my own glory. Look what happened to Satan when he tried that…he was once an angel and was cast out of heaven! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, but not apart from his strength and power.
So another thing is humility. Plain and simple. And I can imagine few things that could humble a person more than trying to learn an entirely new language. And I mean, gosh, I have it easy compared to many people I know. At least I took Spanish in high school and verb conjugation and some vocabulary words are similar. I would probably spend my days in a puddle of tears if I was trying to learn Arabic or Thai or Mandarin right now. To the friends I know that have done that, I salute you.
Language learning is humbling because it makes us (sometimes painfully) aware that we do not know everything. We have to ask for help. From God and from people around us. And luckily, people here aren't shy about correcting your grammar and pronunciation. So you make a fool of yourself and you learn.
Another thing the Tower of Babel story shows me is how exquisitely dynamic our world is because God created different languages. People dispersed and spread and formed different cultures. We are all so beautifully different, yet so innately similar. So as frustrating as it can be to have linguistic failures of communication, how bland would the world be without different cultures?
I also think that's part of getting to know people here. You get to be the stupid American with the verbal capacity of a three-year-old (an honestly, that's being generous). The locals get to laugh at you, and you get to depend on them to explain things.
It's difficult, but doable. And I am praying for the "gift of tongues." It's going to take a miracle for me to be able to express myself clearly in Italian. But I am grateful for struggles (even though I know this one is comparatively more minuscule than most), because they make me more acutely aware of my need for Him.
I literally cannot do this whole language-learning, overseas-living thing without Him. I need to draw my strength and sustenance and satisfaction and joy from Him alone. I need to stay connected to the Vine.
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing." -John 15:5
I have to abide in Him.
So here's to hoping I'll bear the "fruit" of full sentences in Italian soon :)
Love from Rome (what a joy it is to finally be able to say that!!),
Elizabeth
