Tell Me

When I lived in Panama in the early nineties, the normal way to answer the phone was with just one word ‘digame’. After being used to giving either my name or my number, it was something different to learn to use just this word, the same word that everyone else would use as I rang them. As my Spanish left quite a bit to be desired, it also took a while before I realised what was being said – ‘digame’. Literally it means ‘tell me!’ I suppose our equivalent phrases would be somewhere around ‘what’s up?’, ‘what’s happening?’, ‘what’s the news?’ But I grew to like that Panamanian response. For me, it expressed immediate interest, a wanting to know, a readiness to listen. It also meant that the reason for phoning was that you had something to tell. Advent 2010 takes us into the third year of the United Reformed Church’s Vision4Life initiative, the Year of Evangelism. Evangelism can happen in all sorts of ways, but it always involves us telling the story, our story and God’s story – and even those of us who are sometimes scared by evangelism can do that! Christmas is the time when we especially tell the story of the nativity – God coming to earth in human form. It’s one of the best chances in the year to tell the Christian story. Let’s grab it with both hands. I am convinced that lots of people in their own ways, and often without really knowing it, are saying “digame”. Let’s tell them the Good News!