About a week ago, as the airplane was doing touch-n-go training flights, I noticed a small girl in the group of kids who was wearing (literally) a rag for a dress. It was torn in so many places that she was a bit embarrassed trying to cover her little body. I asked Benjamin, one of the teenagers who speaks a tiny bit of English, in my broken French and English to have her come with us. I asked Benjamin to accompany her because she was so shy and
acted scared. We went to my hut where I pulled out a tape measure and decided to just measure the rag dress she was wearing. Benjamin took her home and I drew a simple dress pattern from the measurements. Learned her name is Natalie (they say nah-TAH-lee) and she is 7 years old. Found some fabric I brought – from Hobby Lobby – with bright rainbow-colored frogs all over the black background. The pattern I drew fit perfectly on that small piece of fabric. So two Wednesdays ago I sat at Danae Netteberg’s table, borrowing Danae’s sewing machine plugged into a transformer, and sewed the little dress (same pattern piece for front and back, simple).
Yesterday, I asked Benjamin to bring Natalie because I had the dress ready. He brought a very scared little girl to my hut, but I showed her the dress and she smiled for the first time. I asked her to help me (Benjamin helped, too) pick up the plastic bags that had blown into our part of the yard, and to rake some leaves, then she could have the dress. The principle here was to have her do a little work to “earn” the dress. We only worked for, maybe, 15 minutes, then I folded the dress and gave it to her. When we got to the gate of our compound, Natalie’s mother with a baby girl on her back, and Natalie’s little sister were waiting for her. They were all smiling and the mother spoke to me in French.
Today, (Monday) after teaching English to the 2nd graders at the Adventist Elem, I walked home and was greeted by small groups of children coming to me and trying to sing the song I have been teaching them when I walk to and from the school, the chorus of “Jesus Loves Me,” in their home language of Nangjere. (A lot of children do not go to school.) There were 3 different groups of children today, and in the last group were Natalie wearing the froggy dress and a bright blue head scarf (adorable!), her mother and little sister! A surprise for me!
Something I really enjoy is telling children stories and teaching them songs. The Nangjere language is not difficult to pronounce (French is more difficult to wrap your tongue around in my opinion), and our local Chadian translator, Frederick, has been helping us with French and Nangjere words to choruses. I mentioned previously that I had the nature story at the branch Sabbath School in Dabgue two Sabbaths ago. Well, this past Sabbath I had the lesson – Abraham’s test in sacrificing Isaac. I prayed that everyone would understand the parallel beauty when comparing that story to Jesus’ sacrifice for us. Frederick translated English to Nangjere. Just in the telling of the story, it came alive again for me.
I have been praying for a way to reach the people because of our language barrier, but I saw today, in the simple chorus of “Jesus Loves Me,” that the children understand the words and want to learn it. Continue to pray that we will find small ways to reach them with the Gospel.
Jesus is coming soon and we don’t have much time left. Every day is a day closer!
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