Arabic Practice

One of the first words I spelled in Arabic.

At my small group last week, we talked about hope. Every person in the group gave a prayer request in the form of a hope that we have and we all prayed for our hopes. When it was my turn to speak, I shared that the hope I have is to not give up on Arabic. It is the language of the people here in Kuwait and I feel that it is important to know for a variety of reasons. I prayed that I wouldn't give up and I would have opportunities to continue to speak Arabic.

Fast forward to this week and God answered that prayer. I work at an institution where there are many native Arab speakers who also speak English fluently. I usually have the desire to speak to some of them in Arabic, but because of fear and and the difficulty of trying to speak and understand, I usually always chicken out and speak English, which is easier for everyone.

However, I was able to get over my fear this week. I started speaking to one of my colleagues in Arabic while we were in the tea room getting a drink. She responded quite positively, and even though the conversation was short, she said she was impressed with my Arabic.

That's not to say that I'm fluent by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have a small vocabulary that I can work with. My colleague had to repeat herself a couple times and translate a few words, but I had an idea of what she said and she could understand me.

She also said that she would try to speak to me every day in Arabic, which was a surprising and pleasant offer. I know that means a lot more work and thinking for me, but if it helps me to use the vocabulary I have more often, then I'm definitely interested.

 

"Welcome" in Arabic

 

I also had lunch the same day with another Arab colleague, and because of my confidence from the previous encounter, I also asked if I could practice. It was a little more difficult because he was more interested in teaching me, rather than trying to talk using my limited vocabulary. However, I still felt like he understood me and I understood some of what he was saying. I was a little discouraged because I understood less, but I was glad that I tried.

I walked away from that experience realizing that God answers prayers. I have been wanting to talk with people in Arabic since the beginning of the year, and almost always chicken out. However, after we took time and prayed together in small group, I had an opportunity to communicate in Arabic twice in one day.

We often feel that the pressure is on us, but this experience reminded me that God really has power to change things in my life, to overcome fear and doubt, and transform his people from one degree of glory to the next. If we put our hope in God and not ourselves, then our lives will be much more satisfying and joyful.

Arabic Church

Near the beginning of the Arabic service

There was one activity that I had the opportunity to experience this week that I have not done the entire six years that I've been in Kuwait, which was attending an Arabic church service.  I have found a church home in Jabriya, and I am very happy there, but I have always felt that it would be interesting to see how Christians worship God in an Arabic worship service.  When I was in Jordan this summer, I went to a Sudanese service, because it has always intrigued and fascinated me to see how another culture and language worships Jesus.

The excuses for not visiting this service before have been plentiful.  I have passed it off as being a waste of my time because I don't know enough Arabic to understand anything.  I thought I didn't really know any vocabulary related to church or Christian things except basic words like God, Jesus, Christ, and the church. I also found the timings of the service difficult to attend.  There is a service on Sundays at 8pm, which is really late and the first day of the work week here, and I wouldn't get home until around 10pm.  The other service is on Thursday nights, and I never wanted to give up my free night (the end of the work week) to attend then either.

This past Sunday, I finally managed to push those excuses aside and convince a friend to go with me, so I wouldn't have to be alone on the drive or while I was at the service.  I probably would not have gone alone to do something so new and different.

It was at the main compound in Kuwait City, where most of the English language services are held.  They wrote down my name and the name of my friend as first time visitors when we entered the service.  I don't know if they do this for security purposes or if it was just to contact us after visiting for the first time. 

We took our seats in one of the pews and it started after a minute or two.  It seemed like a blur because it all happened in Arabic.  The man who opened up the service was dressed in a traditional Kuwaiti garment, and I presumed him to be Pastor Emmanuel Al-Gharib. (He is an ordained Kuwaiti Christian, and there are about 300 Kuwaiti Christians by birth, coming from 12 different families.)

The service itself was pretty interesting.  There were about four or five songs that we sang, and there was a keyboard and drummer who led the worship.  None of the songs were translations of songs that I have ever heard, and they all had a very Arab feel to the music in terms of the rhythm and chords that were played, relatively similar in style to Arabic music that is heard on the radio. It seemed like a fairly traditional service- for some songs we sat down, and for others we stood, the pastor the pastor reciting things throughout the service.  I say "things" because I truthfully didn't understand very much at all.  I could catch a word or two every other sentence, and I knew even less from the worship songs.  I had no idea what I was singing, but I tried to at least pronounce the words. 

Afterwards, another man in a grey suit came up to give the sermon.  I think he might have been Egyptian just from the way he said a few of the words. He preached from Ephesians 3:15.  One phrase that I did understand that he repeated a few times was "Everything is from God."  He spent most of his time expounding that and going through the Scriptures.  It seemed a little long, but mostly because I couldn't follow very much of what he was saying. Finally, they had something like a new members introduction because several people got up and the pastor spoke to them and they said "yes" at several points throughout the talk, so I'm assuming it was a charge for them as to their responsibilities in and to the church.

Middle of the service with the man in suit talking to us

After that, my friend and I decided to leave because it was getting late even though the service had not officially ended.  Most people seemed friendly just from looking around, and if I had to guess, I would say they are mostly Arabs from Lebanon, Syria and other countries in that region. 

Overall, I was a little discouraged about how little Arabic I knew, but I also remembered that I just don't have a lot of vocabulary to match something like a Christian religious service. Additionally, I was excited that I had that opportunity to see what an Arabic Christian service is like.  My friend mentioned to me hat it could be a place to take someone who would feel more comfortable communicating in Arabic than in English. 

Humbled by how little I knew, I thought about how hard it must be for all the Egyptians, Indians, Bangladeshis and others who come to Kuwait and are forced to learn English and Arabic very quickly to survive.  It makes me think more about showing respect and kindness to all foreign workers here, because of all the adaptations they have to make. It was a good experience, and one that I will probably draw from often.

Awkward Situation

I made my way to one of the cross-cultural centers in Kuwait which offers Arabic classes.  It took me a little while because the address wasn't on my GPS, so I had to actually read the road signs.  Upon entering the building, I saw a young Muslim woman who I assumed to be a Kuwaiti or Syrian because of her fair skin, along with her hijab (head covering) and abaya (black outer garment).

She greeted me with "Salam Alaykum", which is the Arabic and Muslim traditional greeting, which means 'peace to you.'  I responded with "Alaykum Salam," which means the same thing.  After this, I spoke to her in Arabic about my interest in taking Arabic classes.  It always takes a little time to communicate in Arabic what I'm saying, and she quickly said I could speak to her in English.  I felt a little foolish because I was sure she thought my Arabic was awful and that it would be less painful for us to speak in English.  I told her I know some Arabic and want to continue learning.

She asked me how much Arabic I knew.  Again, I started speaking in Arabic to show her my range, abilities and limits with the language.  This time she said nothing, which prompted me to ponder why I even try learning Arabic if it's that bad.  She asked me where I learned Arabic, so I told her in mixed English and Arabic that I've taken different classes on and off over the last several years and that I wanted something with more speaking than reading and writing.

When she asked me why I wanted to learn the language, I told her I liked it and that I want to know some since I live in an Arab country.  It was at this point that she responded with, "I want to learn Arabic too."  I was kind of stunned.  I instantly replayed all the scenes of me talking with her in Arabic and realized that she didn't speak it once except for the initial greeting, which also explains why she wanted me to talk to her in English and she didn't respond to my Arabic dialogue.  I was pretty embarrassed, and I felt that I should have known better than to assume. 

This experience reminded me that, while Kuwait is an Arab nation, it is full of people from all kinds of cultures.  In fact, there are more foreign workers than Kuwaitis.  I was also reminded that not all Muslims speak Arabic.  I believe the largest Muslim population on Earth is Indonesia, and where they do not speak Arabic.  At the end of the conversation, I asked her where she was from and she said Pakistan, which has a huge number of non-Arab Muslims, who only know Arabic from the Koran.  I guess my situation would be like hearing a Christian say hallelujah and assume they know Hebrew.