I led a Bible Study the other day in a foreign language. Speaking Portuguese has become normal for me, but there are still people around me who speak less Portuguese than I do, and I don't mean expats. Most people who live in Gondola, their first language is Shiutewe and then Portuguese. For people who do not go to school or have much reason to leave Gondola, that's all they really know.

The women at church are visiting each other's houses on Thursday afternoons. They visited my house twice (the first time they had low attendance and I invited them back again). They visited the pastor's wife and this Thursday, it was at the former treasurer's house. I was the second to arrive, arriving in a timely 50 minutes past the house scheduled. The first to arrive was Joana, who speaks very little Portuguese. The women generally speak Shiutewe together and Thursday was no exception. I'm beginning to understand a bit but that's usually because they slip Portuguese into the conversation every once in a while. The third and final woman arrived about 45 minutes after I did.

So, after the hostess washed all her dishes and bathed (while we were waiting), we entered the house to pray. They made me pray and then they sang a few songs. Then they began discussing something and I guessed that they were talking about what to do. So I volunteered to read the Bible to them. They thought that was a good idea but did not have any favorite stories, so I selected Psalm 23. I read it slowly so they could hear the words well and hoped that they would be able to understand the words. They said they did, but when I asked them how David described God (which I had told them the Psalm was David describing God) they didn't understand what I meant. We began to talk about what a shepherd does and through one of the women translating my Portuguese into Shiutewe, they seemed to get it. But then the husband came home and she asked him to translate. So I reviewed what we talked about and then their faces lit up with understanding. I then asked him if he would roughly translate the Psalm for them so that they would understand it better. He graciously did and they understood it alot more. It makes me wonder how do we teach people the Bible (as the church is asking us) when we can't even speak their language and there aren't Bibles in their language for someone to read.