At a community game night, Angie Kaeselau steps into new territory to build relationships.

A day playing games sounded like a great opportunity to get to know more people. And getting to know people is a big part of culture and language study.

So missionary Angie Kaeselau says that when a single gal from her church invited her to come to a sports day for young adults at another church, she decided to go, even though she calls herself “genetically uncoordinated.”

When she arrived, Angie says the gal who invited her was nowhere in sight, but she jumped right in to the activities, anyway. These included games of soccer, volleyball, basketball and a few board games.

“It was quite interesting trying to speak with people,” Angie says. “They were very patient with me.” Angie good-naturedly attempted some games that other girls were playing, but was eventually drawn to a table where Scrabble was being played.

“This was certainly a test,” Angie shares. “They ended up letting me spell in English. The others I played with knew some English.”

Later Angie located the friend that invited her, who urged her into more games with a group of girls. She even learned to dance with them a little. “That certainly brought me out of my comfort zone. Fortunately, my non-athletic ability wasn’t tested too much and I was able to have fun with the young people that were there and to begin to build some relationships.”

Culture and language study has many faces and it results from many kinds of interactions. Pray for Angie as she builds friendships and assimilates the local culture in Senegal as well as working hard on her language studies. Pray that God will give her boldness as she interacts with new people and practices a new language for His glory.