Wednesday, October 18, 2006
OUR OCTOBER 9 GROUP - A Small Miracle
As we receive our missionaries, one group is bilingual - English and French then the alternate group is strictly English. As a result, we monitor ahead to be certain that we enough missionaries to provide companions for each missionary in their own language. With this group of 28, it became obvious pretty early that we would be having just one french sister (she's right in the middle on the front row) and no one to be her companion for the 16 days she was here. She comes from Lubumbashi, in the DRCongo, and we wrote the missionary department wondering what best to do - option one was wait until another french sister was coming, but we have no record of another one coming until next year - option two, just have her report directly to her mission president and miss the MTC and temple experience. Well, the Area Presidency in Johannesburg left the decision to me, and considering the options, we could just imagine the disappointment the sister would feel, not being able to come and weighed that against the frustration that not having anyone with whom to speak french would bring, and decided to have her come anyway and assign her with two english speaking sisters which would take a little pressure off the english speakers as there would be two of them to attempt to communicate with. Well, the Lord prepares the way, for completely unknown to us until the moment she checked in, Sister Sandison (seated to the immediate right(as you look at the picture) of Sister Nkulu) is a french major at university and speaks perfect french as well as perfect english - so the threesome worked out marvelously - one french, one english, one bilingual - the Lord prepares the way.This group has 13 headed to French speaking missions (DRCongo and Ivory Coast) and 15 going to Ghana and Nigeria. They come from Nigeria, Ghana, Uganada, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and the D R Congo (KInshasa and Lubumbashi). The group is highlighted by having 7 sisters - the most we have had at one time here in the MTC. It may just be our imagination, but it seems the noise level is just a little higher with this group - not certain if that is caused by the Elders trying to get the attention of the sisters, or whether it is the French in competition with the English, or whether we just have 28 that speak at a higher level and pitch than those we've had before. We love them all and see great potential in the group.
# posted by Ghana Gazette @ 2:38 AM 
