“Bonjour! J’apprends le français,” I said to people walking by. “Hi! I’m learning French.” I was standing outside the entrance to a fair in a town in southern France. While waiting for the rest of our monthly support to come in, we decided to take a trip to France to use the language-learning method we had been taught in AFM training.

The first thing I did was have a friend help me translate the following short text into French: “Hi! I’m learning French. I will be in France for three weeks. This is all I can say. Tomorrow I will learn more. Thank you for listening to me. Goodbye!” Then I memorized it. After that, I needed to find 50 nationals to say it to, so my friend suggested I go to the fair for an hour.

In the first five minutes, I had said my text to five different people, and I was elated. This was going great! After saying it to 15, though, I realized 50 was still a long, long way away. Most of the people smiled and wished me good luck, others looked at me as if I had gone crazy and a few just hurried on before I could finish.

Later that week, Jason and I went back to town together. As we were walking up to a store, a postman saw us and said, “Hey, aren’t you the lady I saw at the fair?”

“Yes, that was me!” I replied happily. He asked me what more I had learned, but I was so taken by surprise I could only think of a few things to say.

When we arrive in Benin, I am looking forward to putting this method to use again. There I will be making friends with the people I talk to, not just talking to random people I most likely won’t see again. I’m excited to think that, as I communicate my need for help to learn their language, I will be building friendships that can last for eternity. May God grant you an opportunity this holiday season to share with someone about your friend, Jesus.

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