Yesterday four of our team accompanied Mircea about an hour west to support the local pastor at a small church in a gypsy community. Peter & Jess (the younger members of our team) led a children’s activity session. While this was happening, it was noticeable that a number of teenage girls were hovering on the edge but not joining in. So Mircea (our host & mission organiser) asked me if I could speak to them. It’s been a long while since I’ve spoken to a group of 12 teenage girls through an interpreter in a culture neither of us share… Some of the time I spent asking them to teach me Romanian pronunciation. It confirmed in my own mind that not a lot has changed in my linguistic ability since I dropped French a the age of 15.
After this a number of adult members of the congregation arrived and two of us were invited to speak to them. In this part of the world it's quite normal for there to be two or three speakers in a church service so they do last longer than back home. I spoke from Paul's letter to Philemon on a culture of forgiveness in an unforgiving world.
By the time we arrived back in Zalau (about 19:30) the lack of sleep at the beginning of the week, plus the multicultural shift – UK-Romania-Gypsy (they refer to themselves as Gypsy rather than Roma) plus adapting to speaking through an interpreter left me feeling a bit flat. But I understand that that is normal for the first day or two, and I'm anticipating that it will become easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment