Rachel's Reflections

The incredible, amazing Christmas Eve blessing that made this entire year, with all of the problems and hardships that have come up, worth it. One night, one blessing, the culmination of a year's work. Lauren and I had invited several Mwani neighbors to come with us to the Christmas Eve service. A few had promised to come. The day arrived and Mama J was at our house ready to come. Mama F had a family emergency and wasn't able to make it. I went to see if Mama I was ready to go and met her on the way to her house. She grinned at me and said "Let's go!" As I led them towards my church, with Lauren at the back, the call to prayer from another religion went off and I couldn't believe I was walking to the Christmas Eve service to celebrate the birth of Jesus the Messiah with two Mwani ladies who don't believe for themselves that Jesus is God. The service was beautiful, everyone was so happy, dancing and singing to the Lord, proclaiming Jesus, our Savior

" Nikidili !"  I exclaimed exuberantly  and Mama R grinned back at me. I had successfully accomplished a difficult task in my language learning lesson and I had learned how to say " I did it " to express my joy. T wo months ago it would have been a completely different story. What has made that difference?  God Who would have guessed that by age 25 I'd be learning my third language? Not me It's been a challenge this year functioning in my second language (Portuguese) while trying to learn my third language (Kimwani). There are definitely times when I get discouraged. Days that I feel like I haven't learned anything. Moments where I stare at someone with a blank face because I have no idea what they said or how to respond. Lessons where my language teacher gets frustrated because I can't remember anything she has taught me. But this week has been such an encouragement! I've had several people comment on my Kimwani, that I'm le