This past Sunday at church one of the ladies from the village invited me to her house Monday afternoon to pick grapes from her garden. Her name is Pani (Mrs.) Markova and when I first met her I knew she was just the nicest lady- she is always smiling and laughing. Monday afternoon I went over to her house and she fixed coffee and had a plate of little cakes prepared. We sat and attempted to have a conversation, which actually went really well! I had my Slovak-English dictionary, which is a big help, and she is so patient with me. For some reason she is a lot easier for me to understand than some other people. She uses hand motions, and talks slower, and I don’t know what else it is, but we were able to communicate! She showed me pictures of everything- from when she was growing up, to her wedding, then her kids, and the church. It was great, because she was explaining things while showing me the pictures, so I could understand more about what she was talking about. And even when we weren’t talking or when we couldn’t understand each other- just sitting with her and drinking coffee was so great. Then we went out to her garden and picked grapes- she has tons of grapes, and she gave me a bunch to take with me. I realized how much her presence meant to me, how much joy she brought me, and how she ministered to me by just being with me. I hope that I can do for others what she did for me that afternoon.

I also realized that one of the difficult things about the Slovak language (of the many things that are difficult about it) is the words for yes and no. Yes is “Ano” and No is “Nie” which is fine, but people shorten it and will say “No” instead of “Ano”, so I am hearing them saying “No” thinking they mean No when they really mean yes! I have to constantly remind myself that no means yes…that is unless they are trying to speak in English.