To Know & To Know

saber – to know 

conocer – to know 

It’s time for a Spanish lesson. In an attempt to explain a particular concept, I am going to use these verbs that capture a concept we do not exactly have in English. We have a similar idea, but using these words above, I believe the picture is more clearly and concisely communicated.

First, the definition. You can see above that in Spanish, there are two different words with the meaning “to know.” Are they different? Yes. How? That is entirely determined by the context of the sentence that contains the verb, and by the idea one is trying to communicate.

“Saber” would be used in an impersonal, descriptive, informational context. For example, the sentence “Yo sé (saber) Carolina del Norte” would be understood as someone saying “I know North Carolina” because they have seen that state on a map and maybe know some facts about it. 

“Conocer” would be used in a personal and possessive way. It implies acquaintance. In the sentence “Yo conozco (conocer) Carolina del Norte” this “know” would be understood to mean that the subject knows North Carolina because they have been there, lived there and had some experience there. 

One verb means knowledge about and the other means knowledge by acquaintance. Now to get to my point. I’ve learned some pretty incredible things this year and I have shared a lot of that on here. But what is an overarching theme in the series of lessons I’ve learned in my travels? 

My answer to that question would be the movement of things I know about God to things I know about God. That’s a fun play on words. But you see, in Spanish, it makes sense.

For as long as I can remember I have known and believed in God. I was taught from an early age of who he is and I can honestly say that I fully believed those things about him. I can’t remember not believing it. I knew that he created the world and everything in it, that he loves his people, that he sent his only son to die for our sins, that he cares for his people, that he provides, that he changes hearts, that true peace is only found in Him, that he is the one source of joy, that he speaks to us through his Word, & a multitude of other things. 

The Lord has used this unique year to teach me some truths about Himself and the best way I have come up with describing that is through these words. 

In Honduras the Lord’s nearness became so real to me. I was in a place of questioning, being frustrated, wanting answers, and being disappointed by the abuse of God’s name for selfish gain. That time was so concentrated with difficulties, but within that struggle, the Lord was so near to me. He gave me exact answers through conversations or verses or books, like-minded people to talk to & hash things out with, and reminded me again and again that Scripture ALONE is where we find our truth and gave me rest in that. I knew that God was near. I had felt it before in different stages of my life, but this time in Honduras was transformative in the way I view my God who sees even the smallest needs and addresses them. I know God is near. 

In Nicaragua, I was coming out of a tough era. Like I mentioned before, Honduras (and debrief in El Salvador) were mentally, spiritually, culturally, and emotionally taxing. I was at a point of having to wrestle with God through my lack of understanding his ways and having so many questions and not a lot of rest. REAP Granada was just a place of peace and evidently a ministry following the Lord. So, while getting to experience outward peace, the Lord also gave me resources, conversations, and Scripture to give me such inward peace in Him. Again, for my entire life, I have known the peace of the Lord. Every Christmas we focus on the Prince of Peace, I hear that God is our only source of true peace and joy, and I believed it, but never had I experienced such turmoil met with true peace from God that satisfied, even in the hard questions, the difficulties and the sadnesses of this life. I knew it in a different way because the tough things were still there, but the peace overwhelmed it. 

Are you seeing the theme? 

Costa Rica! Wow, this month showed me how small my faith really is. Working with a drug rehabilitation program and seeing the men and women there who came off the streets now following the Lord wholeheartedly? I wrote another blog about this, so I won’t go into a lot of detail, but I saw that God really can change ANY heart. I had heard stories of these transformations of people who are just about as low as you get in life then having their heart changed and knowing Christ. Don’t get me wrong, I believed it. But seeing something right in front of my face so blatantly just gave me a new faith in a God who can and will change hearts. Ever since this month, my prayers are different for the people in my life that don’t follow the Lord. 

The Dominican Republic. I think the lesson here was how important discipleship is. This has honestly been a theme throughout the year, but a big part of Dominican was seeing the Mission of Hope model of discipleship within their ministry. If we are to be fueled to go out and proclaim the name of Christ, we must first be filled ourselves by the Lord and by brothers and sisters in Christ. Again, something I have heard, but their example solidified that belief. 

Panama. Again, I wrote a whole blog post on this, but one of the overarching lessons was that the. Lord. provides. To experience this the way that my team did was overwhelming and I can’t even begin to put that into words. We started with nothing. No plan, no connections, no place to stay, and BOOM out of nowhere, we were cared for above and beyond what we could have hoped, by the coolest people who took us in without hesitation, and we got to join in all kinds of ministry for the month. I’ve heard stories of believers my entire life that would need funds and receive an exact amount, or the doors that would open in answer to prayers and it was always such a cool testimony to our God’s care of his people. The Lord allowed me to experience that first hand and I can say with different conviction now that I know He provides. 

Finally, Peru, where I am now (and yes, I will have a country recap posted soon), the Lord has taught me how he gives good gifts. Now, I think this is something that I have known for a long time. But, we humans are just prone to forget that it is the Lord from which everything good flows. I was reminded this month through several things, that God just loves giving good gifts to his children. A specific instance was getting to meet up with two families that I was in language school with in Costa Rica in 2021: the Coopers and the Hayes. They both finished late last year in their language studies and are now permanent residents of Peru. There were a lot of factors that played into this meeting. The Hayes live in the jungle and are rarely in Lima My ministry just “happened” to be only about 45 minutes from where the Coopers live. The day that I planned to meet up with the Coopers was the same day that the Hayes “happened” to be in the same area of Lima. We had a joyous ILE reunion at the zoo and spent the day catching up on life and reminiscing about our time in Costa Rica. Not a coincidence that all of that worked out. 

You see? To know and to know are different. I am so thankful for the way that the Lord has used these past 8 months to teach me to know Him better. I hope and pray that you will be encouraged by this testimony of what the Lord has been teaching me. 

Now that I have this post finished I will work on a recap of our time in Peru !! 

Please be praying for me and my squad as we make the trek to Africa! September 1st begins our journey to Eswatini, and it will take a full 5 days (plus extra hours) to get from Cusco, Peru to Eswatini !! We will need strength, perseverance, and no issues in flights/baggage/covid tests/etc. Thank you all for being apart of this through your prayers and encouragement and by following along through these posts !!