The Continued Adventures of Spell Read

Lori has officially begun working as a tutor for Spell Read; she and her first student are zipping right along in their lessons. The program emphasizes phonics in new and unique ways, using repetition to help the brain re-learn the connections between sounds and letters, so those connections can be more firmly established, which makes reading much easier.

Lori and her first student, Gordon

As she was being introduced to the program, which involved having our English phonetic sounds broken down and separated into distinct letter combinations, she discovered that her years in Cameroon being exposed (even rather slightly) to French had impacted her more than she realized. As she puts it:

You see, when I print a "j" alone and ask you for the sound it makes, you'll

probably say something like "jump for joy" or "Jesus is born!" (well, maybe not

all that, but you get the point). However, the "j" that I see printed makes a

much longer, flowing sound, more like "sh", because that is often the

sound it makes in French. When I realized this, I was surprised, but thought,

"That's okay; I can switch back to the English sounds. No problem." But

then more of these non-English, French influenced sounds began to reveal

themselves, and I realized that "switching back" might be more complicated

than I first imagined that it would  be.

As Lori drove to her final training session, it occurred to her that if her minimal exposure to French over the years in Cameroon had "messed up" her recognition of English sounds that much, how much more does our exposure to the world mess up our lives as Christians. We are called to be holy, set apart, unique and pure, fellowshiping with God and listening to His direction in our lives. But as we expose ourselves to the things of this world, we start to loose our ability to hear Him clearly.

Of course, we have to live in the world during this life, doing all the normal things that we need to do to survive and influence others for Christ, just like we had to learn some French to be able to function effectively in Cameroon. The process of learning French has changed the way we speak English in ways we never imagined or intended; we have to be careful that our necessary interactions with the world do not muddy our walk with our Savior. We must stay guarded and choose wisely what we allow ourselves to become involved in, lest we become entangled and allow our mother tongue to get mixed up with the foreign language of the world.