Today represented for me the culmination of my academic goals in Paris. By my own will, I got up in front of 50 French students and spoke, in French, about the spread of Pentecostalism in Rwanda just before the genocide. It was a choice I made on the first day of class, when, in the French system, all the students choose their oral presentations for the semester. My professor gave me the option to skip the presentation and write an essay, but at the beginning of the year, I optimistically thought this daunting prospect would be a good goal for my stay. So I chose the last possible date, and the topic that came with it, and convinced myself that by the time May rolled around, a presentation in French would be nothing.
Well, needless to say, I regretted that decision all this week, especially when my host mom asked me for the fifth time why I was talking out loud to myself in my room alone all day long….
I got up to the platform more nervous than before a ballet performance, and unlike dancing, there is no release of energy in speaking… so my nervousness came back in waves as I struggled through my pronunciation (too bad pen-te-côt-al-is-me is one of the hardest things for me to say in French). But in the end, after high praise from my professor, I was reminded yet again of what God has been teaching me as I humiliate myself daily struggling to express myself in a foreign language: that his grace is sufficient for me, for his power is made perfect in my weakness. I have always tried to pray for God to give me words when speaking in my own language, but when those words are foreign to me, this prayer takes on a whole new meaning – and a whole new power.
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you rock. i want to know more about pentecotalisme in rwanda though!!!
ReplyDeleteOK crazy sista
ReplyDeleteThis is why I didn't translate and post my presentation:
The french system in history is very different - what they do is they give you a document and you have to "comment" it - aka, explain every reference and word and historical movement behind what is recorded first hand. So I had this testimony of a Rwandan villager, who happened to convert to pentecostalism right before the genocide, and so my presentation followed and explained ever event in his life historically. Which means that for you to understand what the heck I was saying, I'd have to translate the document, translate my presentation, add a lot to the presentation since it was just notes, and then post it. Violà the reason I have been resistant to your insistence that I write it out. If, however, you skype me, I would be glad to tell you all I know :-)
You are so fabulous - I love this :)
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