Our daughter, who has not yet made 2 years, is steadily broadening her vocabulary. She was not born in Africa and for some reason we will start teaching her our native language from the age of 3 years onwards; currently she speaks Englsih only. I know some of you may not agree with us but thats the decision we have made as her parents.

While on a trip outside my province, I decided to skype with my family in the evening and my daughter kept on saying a tta. She had never said this before and it was cleary different from the common prelinguistic utterance of tata or thatha that infants make. This was clearly a new word in her vocabulalry that even the mother noted. It didn`t bother me at first but she repeated it many times even after trying to distract her with some other conversation. a tta, a tta, a tta… she went on. This trip was rough both by road and in the air. Winds gave us a rough landing on one of the airports on my way to Ontario. I prayed many times for a safe journey for us and other people flying and also thanked God several times for safe travelling during the trip. A tta means he kills or she kills in our native African langauge, a language that my daughter doesn`t know how to speak. I kept on wondering why my daughter keeps on reminding me that this person kills. It made me feel uncomfortable given that I still had some flights to take. Was it my last day? As we flew back , the travel was rough again and that is when I remebered the verse John 10:10. Although the thief comes to kill and destroy, Jesus came that we may have life in its fullness. I believe the anxiety I got from my daughter`s words made me pray even more, perhaps I would not have prayed as much as I did. I continued to see God at work when I was driving from the airport. On my way, there was a sharp corner which was very slippery. I tried to slow down but the car kept on skidding in a scary manner but eventually it stopped. This caused anxiety, but with the mercy of our Lord, I arrived safely home.