The test is over!!!!

I want to thank all the people that have kept me in their prayers, especially over the past few weeks regarding my language test. I had my test. It was fun; it was nice. It seems crazy that the past 6 months came down to a 45 minute test, but we all know that God’s got bigger plans than tests that people have to take…well actually it is all one big test, but we would all fail that one if it wasn’t for mercy!!!
My test consisted of sitting at a table with 3 native Pulaar speakers. They each had something that they evaluated me on: how I talked, the words that I used, and how much I understood. There’s this big system and a check list of things that I should know. One guy did the talking and the other two just made notes on the conversation. We talked about many things, about life in Kolda, about the differences between USA and here; we talked about food, I gave directions somewhere, I read out of the bible to them. It was just a bunch of small talk I would say. It was a fun test, I know that I could have done a lot better but I also think it was an accurate evaluation of the Pulaar that I know.
So what did the evaluation say? I’m a level one! They said I’m about a 10-12 year old!!! I’m not ahead and I’m not behind on my learning. I’m right in the middle of the curve on where I should be right now. One of my biggest problems that made me lose a lot of points was my accent. This language has two “B’s” two “D’s” two “Y’s” and three “N’s.” When you write them there is only a small difference with a little tail or accent and you say them the same but with your tongue in a different position. Because of my lazy self I always made the letters the same sound; I knew the people still understood what I wanted to say so I never thought it would be a big deal. But because of it, the evaluators said that my accent was a little distracting and it took points off. They also took off points on my correctness and fluency skills. I also got some points taken off on my vocabulary. I was told that I had a huge vocabulary and that they were very impressed by it, but they also told me that I used many words that were French or Wolof. When I’m here in the city, that’s no problem. People understand me fine, but when I will be out in the villages where they only speak one language, there might be a problem. This was very shocking to me because I had no idea that I did that.
So what am I going to do differently? I have already told my friends to not let me be lazy and correct me when I’m saying something wrong. I’ve also made my friends a lot more aware that I’m past the point that I just want to communicate. I want to know what words belong to what language and I want to be aware of that. Please keep these in mind when you're saying your prayers for my language acquisition.
So what’s next? I’m going to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. I’ll be there for about 3 weeks. The first two weeks I’ll be taking seminary classes, and the third week is a conference where the West Africa region will be able to get together. I'm really excited about the next couple of weeks.