Review: "The Tower of Babel was a Bad Idea"

I can just imagine that when Amy Crofford sat down to write The Tower of Babel was a Bad Idea, she may have seen her life flash in front of her.  As a missionary to Haiti and then to Kenya, she looks with humor and lightheartedness at the sometimes scary and frustrating, sometimes embarrassing, experience of learning and using a new language. 

You may find interesting the ways a missionary must learn the language of his or her new home. This book provides several insights into how differently we all learn and the struggles many have. In giving these examples, the author shows the perseverance and real desire required to keep learning a language until a person feels she can communicate clearly with someone in their native tongue.

This is important if you are not a missionary, too. For example, if you know someone who speaks and lives something they are passionate about, such as a hobby of building cars, then you might want to learn to speak “cars” with them. 

I would recommend that everyone reads this short book with chapters titled “Foot and Mouth Disease” and “Talking a Millimeter a Minute.”  If you are a pastor or youth leader, you may find stories suited for a sermon illustration. Because Amy lets us see into the hearts of many Nazarene missionaries (adults and children), the stories help us connect with them and their desire to share Christ in language that is understandable to others. When you come upon the chapter in which she uses the phrase, “heart language,” you will understand what this means.

To me, this book served as a reminder of how being obedient to God enables His message to be spread.  A good example of this is when Amy shared a story of a new-to-the-field missionary who was just getting the hang of testifying in a new language and … oh, but I can’t give the story away. You’ll have to read the book! 

There is a also a section offering some how-to’s in which those of us at home are encouraged to get involved in God’s mission to the world, even if we are not planning to need a second language.

Perhaps because I was a missionary and had some of these experiences, the stories resonated with me. But you won’t want to miss this book, even if you have never been out of your comfort zone.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The author has done such a clear job and her narrative runs along so well that I was halfway through this short book before I remembered I was supposed to tell future readers how long it might take to read it.  If you are a quick reader it may only take you an hour.

-- Charleen DiSante is a retired missionary who served with her husband, Ed, throughout Africa until 1998. Today she works with Friends of the Homeless of the South Shore, a ministry of Nazarene Compassionate Ministries International in Massachusetts.