Carrie Cox’s Corner

Yesterday I wrote a post in Spanish. It wan’t very good, and I sure didn’t share it anywhere, but it was important for me to try to write in Spanish. I feel like it already helped me with some of the grammar, but it’s so elementary I hate sharing it lol. I do want to continue and challenge myself to learn more about this language that I love.

I remember the first time I was really moved by the language. It was through music. There was a missionary who sang in Spanish with only the guitar backing her up and her husband would interpret for her. I remember thinking she and her voice were so beautiful. I was enthralled.

The same week that I was saved at Camp Waterbrook, MO, when I was 12 years old, a man from Columbia was there playing his Spanish guitar. He was really good. I was so enchanted. I just listened and felt like I was in another world. I was determined to learn Spanish. I tried to take it in High School, but I couldn’t find the videos, and I was homeschooled without a teacher, so I only learned a little bit on my own from a book that I had found. I took a little bit in college, but it was online, and I still felt like I wasn’t learning.

Once I started at the University with an English degree, it was part of my degree plan, but at that time I was doing all I could to graduate on time, so it didn’t get the focus that it deserved. Okay, I didn’t focus on it like I should. I barely passed Spanish 3-my teacher was Hitlers’ mother. Okay maybe not, but she was a young jerk who had something to prove and refused to give us any help, and we were all struggling. I’m still a little bitter. I was 6 months pregnant going to school in the summer, and it was the last class I needed before I graduated. I was in her office just about everyday!

Somehow I made it through, the only stinking C I made my entire college life.

At that time I was teaching and going to school and just became a new mom, so Spanish wasn’t my focus. I really wish I would have spent the time on it when I was a teenager or even younger, because honestly, it’s so much easier to learn things then. Your mind is fresh, your responsibilities are low, and you have way more data in “tu cabeza.” I tell everyone now, “I can’t remember. My storage is full,” haha.

Well fast forward five years and we finally were able to visit our family in Spain. Walking around in the town, being immersed in the country and language, words started coming back to me. They would just come into my head. It was from all the classes that I had taken. Even though I didn’t even know I knew the word for something, it would just pop into my head when I saw it. It was so cool. That was the first time since I was a young child that I was excited about learning again.

A few years later we visited Columbia. I fell in love with it and the precious people there. We stayed with our dear friends Hermano Javier and Claudia, and I realized when they spoke very slowly, I could understand some of what they were saying. That was also very exciting! During that time we went to Bro. Nieto’s church, and I realized that he was the man that played the guitar in Missouri when I was only 12 years old-now we were singing and playing in his church. I was blown away at the plan of God, how he can stir you even as a child, and then years later, that memory returns and he gives you more than you could dream! What a blessing. Our desire to learn Spanish continued to grow.

After we were home we asked Bro. Louis Bolaños when he was back in the states if he would help us to learn Spanish. He agreed! He began coming over and eating dinner with us and working on Spanish. He would send us What’s app messages in Spanish and demand that we send voice messages back in Spanish. He would send us recordings of Bible Devotions in Spanish and then ask us questions. He would annoy us at church with words that we didn’t know and demand us to say them back! He was quite the teacher, but we loved it. We miss our friend. He hasn’t visited home in too long of a time!

He found a teacher for us over FaceTime who was a Spanish teacher in Columbia, and she didn’t speak English. We had lessons each week with her online. At the end our heads would literally hurt. She was so hard. I would have my notes and papers ready as well as the translation app open on my phone just to survive lol. Nathan would steal my notes to answer the questions and I would be mad, haha. Some things never change. He said that was how he got through High School Spanish.

We learned a lot that year. I continued practicing in our school, where I helped to teach Spanish (big joke-the white girl from TN lol). I also would listen to pod casts, news, and the radio in Spanish. I began watching movies in Spanish with English subtitles. It made the words and expressions flow and sound natural. We tried different apps and programs for online Spanish, but there was not one program that stuck. Covid kept us from returning to Columbia and put off a trip to Mexico, but we were able to go to a little church in Hialeah, Florida that made us feel like we were in South America again. The town is called Little Cuba, but the pastor there was from Honduras and his wife from Columbia, but many of the members were from Cuba. We loved the people there! They were so sweet. It was a blessing to go there and to be able to return several times. We love them!

Finally in 2023 we were able to go to Mexico City to visit our friends the Selmans who are missionaries from our church who started a church there. We had a wonderful time, and another place was planted into our hearts. We returned the following spring with the teens from our school for a mission’s trip. I think Mexico was planted into their hearts as well.

With each trip, my confidence in speaking the language would grow. The last trip in Mexico I gave up being afraid and just started trying to speak to people. It was so much fun! I also noticed that I had more confidence and courage to witness and pass out tracts in Spanish than I did in America. All my inhibitions were gone, and I just got out there. Again, so much fun. I even got to make Mexican tostadas on a press in a lady’s back yard. They were so sweet to share their culture with me. The precious people there opened up their hearts to our group. We had planned to go and try to be a blessing to them, but over and over they were serving and loving us. How humbling! Our whole group wants to return again soon.

Now we have taken a group from our school and church on a mission’s trip to Spain. There are 18 in our group. We traveled by plane to Amsterdam, then to Madrid, then by train to Malaga, and then by a short train to Fuengirola. It was quite the journey, totaling over 30 hours of travel. But we are so happy to be back to the first foreign place that we ever went, the birth place of the Spanish Language.

It’s been so awesome being exposed to so many different dialects of Spanish. Living in Houston, we hear the Mexican dialect most frequently, but our teacher was from Columbia and would chastise us if we used Mexican expressions. Visiting Miami and hearing different people and preachers from all over South and Central America contrasted with rapid Cuban Spanish has been a unique experience and grown our vocabulary for sure.

I still have so much to learn. I regret that it’s been ten years, and still I cannot speak fluently, but you know what. I’m not going to quit. Even at a snail’s pace, I want to keep going. This new world is slowly opening up to me and I can’t wait to step fully inside.