Learning

    This week has been full.  For the next three weeks I am house-sitting for a couple that has 2 dogs and a cat.  Three mornings this week started out at 5:45am.  By 8am I had walked the dogs, fed the dogs/cats, and biked into town.  My teamleader(s) and I spent the better part of 3 mornings going from office to office in Peje and then taking the bus to/from the capitol to work on getting the correct paperwork to turn in for my ID card.  Whew, by the end of the week, I was pretty tired. 
    Studying Albanian has been intriguing.  Being a "student" again has put me back into a different mindset.  It is a complex language.  My teacher is going step-by-step.  At first I thought I knew the concepts that she was talking about.  Then I realized how complex it gets when you apply new endings for masculine/feminine singular/plural and indefinite/definite forms of nouns.  So I learned that there were 4 basic forms of every word.  Then, I started to learn about 5 "cases" that are used in Albanian.  (Cases mean that the nouns change depending what part of the sentence the noun falls -- if it's the subject, indirect/direct object, etc). These cases also affect the form of the nouns but also prepositions and other words in the sentence.  Whew, talk about a lot of information to consider.  I have been spending a lot of time with flashcards memorizing new forms and meanings of words.  Learning a language takes a lot of small steps and a lot of time.
   This is a bit like life.  As we walk through life there are so many lessons that take years to learn sometimes.  We learn bits and pieces of ideas and concepts.  It leads to reaching milestone decisions and accomplishments.  But a lot of life is lived taking small steps.
    I think that the times I have been most unhappy in life was when I wanted to "speed up this process."  I wanted things to happen faster than they were.  I wanted to jump ahead of the small steps.  I wanted more now.  God is patient.  He continues to walk me through quiet learning moments and does not allow me to "skip" ahead.  Learning to be grateful and to trust God's timing helps turn these moments of impatience into moments of hope and even joy.