LIVING THE MONTAGE
Rocky IV is the best Rocky movie. If you haven’t seen it, mere words could never do this cinematic marvel justice, but I’ll try. Rocky, the beloved underdog American boxer, avenges his friend’s death by agreeing to box a much younger Soviet specimen IN MOSCOW. DURING THE COLD WAR!!!
Instead of flying into Moscow a night or two before the fight, Rocky, his wife, his trainer, and his brother-in-law inexplicably go to an abandoned ranch in rural Siberia to train for several days, maybe even weeks. And with movie magic we have the best montage scene of all time as the audience is whisked back and forth between state-of-the-art 80s technology pushing the Russian boxer to new limits, while the older Rocky, who didn’t even pack a razor for the trip, dons lumberjack clothes and prepares for the fight without using anything manufactured after the 19th century.
He does pushups, situps, pullups, jumpups, fightups?!, and it’s all in the snow. He runs. He chops wood. He lifts baskets of heavy rocks. He jumps rope. He even takes an oxen yolk upon him at one point. And, no, my friends, his burden is not light. He jogs some more. Did I mention he’s doing it in the snow?!
We the audience jump back and forth between these two different ways of preparation all the while listening to the synthesized 80s song, “Hearts on Fire.” It’s four minutes and thirteen seconds of pure bliss.
Every good action movie needs a montage, especially if there is an underdog who has to train, learn, and sweat to meet the challenge. And why do movies stuff all of that preparation into the tidy length of a pop song full of clips? Because the actual process is long, slow, boring, repetitive, and grueling. Watching it in real time would be the polar opposite of entertainment. We fast forward all of that by way of the montage, so we can quickly get to the next part of the movie where the zero becomes a hero.
I’ve told my family for some time now that we have been living the “montage scene” in Brazil. We’ve few stories to tell about frontline ministry. We’ve little places to go or things to do. We especially have trouble with things to say. Just yesterday a sweet elderly man at the grocery store was confused and asked me if it was Tuesday or Wednesday. I was proud I understood him and responded confidently that it was Monday.
It was actually Tuesday.
I try to talk to my Mom on Sundays. She often asks what’s in store for the upcoming week, and I often tell her the same old schedule: Monday through Friday our kids go to three different schools in two different locations with three different schedules. We have city traffic, so despite each location being about a mile or so away from home, these trips can take between ten to thirty minutes one way.
Of course, everyone wants to eat, so we have to navigate lunch between picking up one kid from school and dropping off another. And then we have to figure out dinner around the time we’re arriving home with the last kid. We leave the house with the first kid at 7:10AM and arrive home with the final kid around 6:30PM. Rinse. Repeat.
On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (used to be Thursdays too) Marci and I have language school all morning. From the first session onward our language helpers only speak to us in Portuguese. They know English some, and if we are really lost they will bust out English to help us, but in general it’s all Portuguese all the time at class.
We go to a school that specializes in teaching Portuguese to foreigners. That means most students are from Spanish-speaking Latin America. Spanish and Portuguese aren’t identical by any means, but they’re closer together than English and Portuguese. So, while Marci and I are still chugging along months later, we’ve seen several of our classmates come and go. There’s a Japanese guy who started last week, so maybe we’ve got a chance to leave him behind. We’ll see.
One other thing about language learning is that it requires your brain to construct new neural pathways. This is something we asked our brains to do a lot in toddlerhood, but as adults we typically give our brains a break. And so, like infants and toddlers, we have to sleep more and get grumpy when we don’t. The brain won’t build these pathways while we’re awake. And on language days I’m simply tired. I’ve got no choice but to lay down and doze off for 20 or 30 minutes. Maybe more.
If I were to write a book about being a first-year missionary it would be entitled Why Am I so Tired All the Time? It wouldn’t be an interesting book. I know the answer. Like I said, we’re living the montage. In between all of this we still have to figure out paperwork and visas, pay bills, buy groceries, address issues in the apartment, and have some fun. I also teach once a week and preach somewhat regularly.
We’ll likely be in our montage stage for many more months, but we have all made plenty of progress. Olivia often gets asked at school if she speaks Portuguese, and she’s come up with an answer that I love: “I know a lot, but I don’t know everything.”
We’ll never know everything, but the day will come, I’m thinking around one year from now, when we’ll know enough to graduate language school and leave this montage stage behind for good. Then we can get our hands dirty in the work to which God called us. There are great opportunities awaiting us at the seminary and the churches that support it here. I believe our brightest days lay ahead.
But until then it’s back to the montage where vocabulary, conjugations, and traffic await every day. It never snows here, but it does rain quite a bit. No, it’s not very glamorous to live, but it’s necessary to thrive. And by God’s grace we aim to thrive here for many years to come.