50 years – The Third Decade: ’82-93

Setting a Solid Foundation – The Time Between Times

This is the third blog post and it treats my third decade. This one runs from my 18^th year (starting college) to my 29^th (departure for French study).

Places lived: Oklahoma and Texas

• Norman, Oklahoma (1982-86: University of Oklahoma, BA in Linguistics),
• Dallas, TX (1986-88: Grad school (SIL Dallas, MA in Linguistics UT Arlington)
• Norman, Oklahoma (1989-93, Teaching English as a Second Language).

I lived in the Walker Tower dorm at OU, all four years of my undergrad. And I realized at the end of that time, that it was the longest I had lived in any one building. This was a record that would stand until I lived in my apartment in Bamako for 13 years beginning in 1999.

Life-Shaping events:

I came back to the US in the middle of high school where everyone else knew each other. I was pretty much clueless about American culture: music, movies, cars, football, what was cool.

Going to the University of Oklahoma (OU) was a time to really come into my own as a person. The freshman year is a time when EVERYONE is making new friends and starting over, and so it was a time for me to start fresh when everyone else was equally new.

I chose to plug into the Baptist Student Union (BSU) starting with the “Freshman Ministry Team”.

Freshman Ministry Team 82-83 Shirt (The Eternity Fraternity)

It was a major time of spiritual growth and foundation laying. It was here that I found lifelong friends, got grounded in the Word of God, and spiritual disciplines of quiet time and scripture memory.  Thanks to Max Barnett, Ralph Neighbor, Dave Edwards, Ron Dinnocenzo, Nelson Leong and others.

1985-86 Ministry team group: Me, Todd Perry, Alan Rhea, Brian Goree, Jeff Maness,

Back row: John Strappazon, Randy Kluver

I went off to the University of Oklahoma as a Civil Engineering major and wanted to study languages as well. I knew I wanted to live overseas and had received “a call” to missions.  I had the idea in my head that I could go to a country and build bridges and dams, and then on the side I would learn the local language and translate the Bible into that language.  Obviously I had no clue as to what is involved in language learning and translation work. I also did not know there were organizations that actually DO Bible Translation in minority languages.

In my freshman year, the BSU challenged us to read “Through Gates of Splendor” in anticipation of a week-long conference with Elizabeth Elliot. I was challenged by the story of the 5 men who gave their lives to reach the Waorani (Auca) and also surprised to learn that Jim and Elizabeth Elliot actually did training in linguistics in the Summer Institute of Linguistics held each summer right there where I was studying. (In 1985 I did SIL courses in Norman and taught there in 1987).

teaching Phonology II at Norman SIL, 1987

In the fall of 1983, my sophomore year, I decided to get a German-English New Testament to keep up my German until the next semester. It was at first eye opening to read the gospels in German -  everything was fresh and different. What must it be like to read the Bible for the first time in my own language? 

But then I got to Romans and realized that I was not getting much out of the text at all, even with 4 years of German under my belt. Could we expect uneducated people to go very far in their spiritual walk if they could only read the Bible in a second language?

So that is when I decided to change my major to linguistics and pursue Bible Translation.

Grad School:

I did a Masters in Linguistics at SIL and UT Arlington for 2.5 years. It is interesting in retrospect. I made a lot of quality friends there, some of whom are still colleagues today. Dallas-Ft Worth became my second home area in the US. And I got involved in at Hope Church in Fort Worth. This was a key time of learning how to make my faith work in a small group setting and away from the college context where everything is structured for you.

And I studied Linguistics, and really enjoyed it. It is something that has been important to understand in my current work but not something I actually use from day to day.

Back to Norman – The Time Between Times

After grad school, I moved back to Norman and got a job teaching English as a second language at the English Language School on Campus Corner.  This was a good use of my linguistics and I really enjoyed teaching, interacting with students and planning fun activities for them (Field Trips, Dances).

ELS staff with two students on Graduation day

I knew I wanted to go overseas, and was doing this to pay off my school loan. Was this advancing me towards my end goal? At some point, it seemed like I was wasting time, spinning my wheels. I see now, though, that God had a purpose in it. He is truly “the God who wastes nothing”.

My First apt in Norman, OK

In this “Time between Times”, I was gaining valuable experience in the “real” work world. I had my first car and apartment and bills to pay on time.

I was making life-long friends and getting established in a church. We were learning how to make our faith work in the real world.

And when it was time to raise support to go overseas, these relationships provided a strong base for that.

Also in this decade my brother Todd married Maria Countryman.  A super addition to our family!

---

Roommates:

At last count there have been 60+ guys with whom I shared a living space for at least a month. In this decade I had 25 different roommates. Roomies that stand out in this decade:

• Les Perkins, Frank January (OU).
• Charles Hilliard (my first summer of SIL)
• Robin Wenger (SIL Dallas)
• And the guys of “Chatauqua House”: Burke Nail, Wade Baker, Kerry Knight, Brady Birdsong, Lance Tate, Craig Brooks, John Allgood. What a fun year living in a big old house with wooden floors near the university. We were all fresh out of school and in our first jobs.

Jann, Brad, Alan, Frank, Les, Russel (last 4 were roommates)

Charles "Chuck" Hilliard at Norman SIL

Languages:

So I’m studying linguistics at university which means I get asked about once a week, “How many languages DO you know?”

• German – 3 years in high school, 1 year in college.
• Mandarin – 1 year in university
• Cheyenne, Hmong, Korean – for linguistic projects and analysis, not actually learned.

Rides:

My sister Tammy in the convertible

• Skateboard: When not riding my bike to class, I rode my skateboard back and forth to class at OU. I never did do any tricks.  Some will remember me skateboarding to class when I was teaching Phonology II at Norman SIL.
• When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a very fun 1979 VW convertible bug, - definitely the most fun vehicle I have had.

Reading:

• The Bible. Switched to NIV. Started Memorizing scripture and had the obligatory “verse pack”.
• Through Gates of Splendor, Elizabeth Elliott.
• Charles Colson: Loving God.  We read this in our Discipleship Group at the BSU.
• Frank Peretti: This Present Darkness
• Stephen Lawhead: the Pendragon series (esp Merlin) and pretty much anything else he wrote. 
• CS Lewis: Mere Christianity, Space Trilogy(esp Perelandra), the Great Divorce.

I find that God speaks to me a lot through narrative stories – fictional or biographies. This was especially true in this period. I’d rather read an allegorical novel by Lewis, than his non-fiction.

Tunes:

• Russ Taff, Michael W. Smith,  Amy Grant, Steve Taylor, Farrell and Farrell, DeGarmo and Key, Sandi Patty, Petra, U2. Harry Connick, Jr.

• It was in this decade that I widened my horizons from beyond just Christian music – though I had absorbed a lot of “secular music” by osmosis, it was not until the age of itunes decades later that I would fill out my collection with 80’s pop and rock and dance tunes.

Movies:

• Back to the Future,
• Star Trek II, IV, VI.
• Batman (the REAL ones with Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer)
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
• Wayne’s World
• Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

TV:

• Family Ties, Cosby, Seinfeld , Cheers, SNL
• Star Trek: The Next Generation, LA Law, 30-something (a show about “old people”)