Rachel's Reflections

How did they manage to get that there ? I wondered as I walked  up to Mama Z's house. My eyes shifted from the conspicuous van parked in a tight spot to Mama Z sitting on her porch talking to a visitor. As I greeted her the van kept asking for my attention. It meant her husband must be around. What would he think about my purpose in visiting Mama Z today? I stopped the new Jesus Film halfway through the three hours. "We'll finish the other half another day," I told Mama Z and the rest of her family. Papa Z shifted his position. He had not only allowed me to show the Jesus Film but had watched with interest as well. "I don't understand," he said, " Is Jesus God or the Son of God?" "Jesus is God," I said.  "If Jesus is God," he went on, "and He died on the cross, who continued to drive* the world?" (*direct translation) "God the Father did," I replied. "So there are two gods?" he asked. "No, ...

If I'm honest, Thanksgiving always meant family to me. Extended family, gathered around delicious food, quality time, good conversations. This year I'm not with my family. Being away from them during the holiday season is hard. Yet God provided for me in a special way this year. My friend's family invited me to join them for their Thanksgiving celebration. And what a celebration!  I walked into their house and saw the beautiful fall decorations on the table. While waiting for other friends to arrive, I received a strange symbol on a card. In order to find our seats, we had to match our symbols with the correct verse reference placed at one of the table settings. In our proper seats, we read through the lengthy Thanksgiving story and sung a song or two. Then we all helped set food on the table: turkey cooked to perfection, juicy ham, and mouth-watering mashed potatoes and gravy. Can you find the verse reference and symbol I have at my place setting? After clearing the dishes...

Mama Z sat cutting the leaves in her hand into fine strips. We would use them to make the Matapa for lunch, my requested Kimwani lesson for the week. Her twin sons came with their English notebooks, hoping I'd help them before I started cooking with their mom. New words like kick, catch, and fry filled the air. They wrote down the words they wanted to remember. A giggling girl interrupted, asking the one boy if he would be ready to leave for school on time. He closed his notebook and got up. His brother started to follow but turned back to me. "One more," he said, "Marry me." I started laughing. I couldn't help it. He said it with such innocence and had no idea what he had said. I've never laughed at their English questions before and he looked confused. Curbing my laughter, I managed to tell him what it meant and his mom joined me in laughing. He mumbled something about learning it from a song and needing to be more careful. I nodded my head in agreemen...

Have you ever seen the EvangeCube? It's really cool to play with. I used to be fascinated with it as a child, trying to flip through the various images.  My current housemate, Inge, has one on her shelf in the living room. I've been itching to play with it ever since I saw it. I finally got my chance. "Can I borrow your EvangeCube?" I asked. "I want to take it to Mama Z's to learn it in Kimwani." I eagerly reached for it when she agreed. Brushing the dust off, I started flipping through it. With a satisfied feeling, I tucked it into my bag.  At Mama Z's house, I showed her the cube, walking her through the presentation in Portuguese. She listened with interest, marveling at how the cube functioned.  "I want to learn how to say all this in Kimwani," I said. She looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I am. We decided to break it down phrase by simple phrase over the course of several days so I could manage all the new Kimwani words. "I bel...