Today is my last day of being 23, and I think I'm ending it on a good note :-)
This morning at 6am I got a call from the PA of our base director, asking me to fill in for her at 11am because she would not be able to teach the Mozambican student pastors today. I think I must have been sleepy cos I heard myself say 'Sure', what's the topic?
It was to be on Forgiveness, but because our director is fluent in Portuguese there was not translator scheduled... I desperately tried getting hold of anyone who could translate for me, but could find no one, finally I decided to just go ahead and be prepared to speak in Portuguese. Dr E had a little book on Forgiveness that he loaded me, and all my friends encouraged me and gave me the confidence to go for it. (But I was still very nervous!)
It was the very FIRST time that I teach in the bible school - usually the other missionaries have a syllabus they follow, but I had to teach from scratch! I am so grateful for the 3 years I spent in the UK at a ministry where Forgiveness was taught often!!!
When I arrived at the class the other teacher was just finishing up, and for some random reason one of our fluent in Portuguese long term missionaries happened to be in the class, and she was willing to stay and translate for me! I probably could have taught in Portuguese, but having a translator meant I could teach deeper and more meaningfully.
So it went really well, at the end, two of the pastors gave testimony of things that had happened in the past that they were still carrying, and now was the first time that they could forgive the people who wronged them - quite amazing!
I also went rock collecting just before the class, and did a demonstration of how holding onto unforgiveness is like carrying a bucket filled with stones around with you - I kinda forgot a pastor was standing there holding the bucket, and he was getting tired! But I think it got the point across...
Next time I hope that I will have more time to prepare, and then I could prepare a teaching in Portuguese, but until then I am having fun trying to put my newly acquired Portuguese into practice!
Oh and the other thing that happened today: I named a baby!
Our laundry lady had a baby boy last week Wednesday and she still came to work the next day, she was so excited about the birth, but could not tell me what the baby's name was. Then last Monday I asked her again if she had named the baby yet, and she said, "You can choose a name for him". Eeek! But I thought about it, so this morning when she came to do our laundry she asked me and I told her that I named her baby 'Tiago' (translated it is 'James') - she liked it!
So to round off my year: I've named a baby (for the first time) and taught in the bible school (for the first time)!
We had the grand opening of the new church building on Easter Sunday, and it was packed with people from all the smaller Comunhão na Colheita churches in the surrounding area.
Lots of singing and dancing by our new larger worship team, and they even wore matching outfits - so it was an exciting time for everyone!!!
