This past weekend, the Nalerigu Baptist Association held a Women’s Missionary Union conference in Nalerigu. I decided that the gathering would be a great way to be introduced to the community of women believers and an exercise in language learning.
Since we have been attending a small church in Kolinvai (a village 30 minutes south of Nalerigu), I attended the meeting as one of the four women to represent that church. To show solidarity, we all had similar “uniforms” made – white top and blue skirt with a blue head scarf. I shared dinner Friday night and lunch on Saturday with the three ladies from Kolinvai. Our conversation was fairly limited, but I was encouraged by how much I was able to understand and communicate with them in Mampruli.
The meeting was a time of singing, encouragement, prayer and business reports. The pastor took pity on me and translated some of his sermon into English, mostly pointing out the scripture references so I could follow along. I especially liked his admonition from Colossians 4 ~ “let your conversation always be full of grace and seasoned with salt, so that you know how to answer everyone.” I look forward to being able to understand and communicate better in Mampruli at the next meeting!