Pascaria Listens

A couple weeks ago my friend Pascaria stopped by. Ronit and I asked her in for tea. Ronit also had a gift for her: a listening device, similar to an mp3 player, that has The New Testament in Swahili and runs on solar power. We showed her how to use it, poured the tea, and put out the bread.

Then Pascaria listened. After awhile she said, "he preaches well." And a little later: "is he an Anglican?" We realized she didn't know that she was hearing Jesus' words; Since she doesn't read, Pascaria's only heard scripture in church, alongside liturgy and sermons, and didn't know the difference. The prayer was the Lord's Prayer, which is used in Anglican churches. We let her know she was listening to the Bible, to God's word, and she listened some more... and listened and listened and listened. She closed her eyes, nodded her head at points, smiled, repeated certain words... And we just watched her listen, for about an hour. The tea and bread went untouched.

It was beautiful to see how the Word entranced and kept Pascaria listening. We don't have her language, Kwaya, recorded yet, but Pascaria will love it when it comes. Her children are actually more fluent in Swahili, so this recording works well, as the whole family is sitting around the player some evenings, listening together.