Twelve sisters and my secret

Språkcafé.  That weekly language café that Wesleykyrkan has been hosting since 2015 when refugees started walking into Europe.  That place where we practice language skills and build community.

Because there is always coffee involved.....fika anyone??

So this past week, we were working on pronunciation, especially pronunciation of the Swedish vowels.  A, E, I, O, U, Y, Ä, Ö, Å.  The exercise was having us switch from the Swedish I to Swedish Y, which funny enough, is one of the hardest vowels in Swedish to pronounce correctly.

Click here to watch a fun video about how to pronounce Y and I in Swedish.

 

The example was “syster” (sister).  Then, we went from en syster (1 sister) to två systrar (2 sisters).  Then we went to “hur många systrar har du?”  (how many sisters do you have?) And the lovely young woman who is Moroccan Italian said “Jag har 12 syster”.  We all chuckled, and I began to demonstrate with my arms about how strong her mother must be.  No, no, no, she quickly said. 

We continue to be challenged to practice language learning while adhering to covid restrictions and safety measures.....obviously this picture was taken pre-covid!

Jumping on another chance to work on numbers, I asked the question “hur gammal är du?” (how old are you) to help us figure out that she has one sister who is 12 years younger.  We then all went around the table and shared that she, (representing Morocco and Italy) was 24 years old, the young veiled woman representing Bosnia-Herzegovina and Algeria was 18 years old, the young man from Pal-estine was in his 20’s,  (didn’t really want to share his age), and then there was me.  Knowing that in their cultures they would never ask an older woman (especially one like me with my silver highlights) how old she was, I offered this gentle suggestion:  “kan ni gissa hur gammal jag är?” (can you guess how old I am?)  Of course the young man wisely declined (I would never dare to guess).  The two young women suggested 38 (at this point, I’m laughing quite out loud!), then maybe in my 40’s.  When I told them that I’m 61, you could see them doing the math.  Of course, I was older than all of their parents! 

Just doing my job....one of my favorite pictures of all time!

 

But then the next question out of their mouths:  what is your secret? 

Okay, to be honest, at this point the conversation switched over to English, because all 3 of them were, of course, quite good in their English language skills as well.  So I took a bold step and said “my secret is that I love serving God in this world and I love following Jesus and living my life for him because he saved me from my sin.”  All 3 heads nodded in agreement with me, sharing their version of how important it is to love God and serve the world.

 

They say in English “there’s more than one to skin a cat”.

For me, there’s always more than one way to bring Jesus into a conversation.

That’s my secret.

Jesus.

He’s always the right answer!