A Good Name

Proverb 22:1 A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.

Learning to draw the African face has been a fun challenge.  Sierra Leonean faces are beautiful, their skin rich with color, but the differences in features are foreign to my eyes.  I have found that be best way to learn these features is by simple observation.  Sitting with a group of ladies in their compounds as they go about their daily lives, with children all around, affords me the best school possible.  Quietly observing, studying, learning, all without their knowledge, gives me realistic settings which I commit to memory for later use in the studio.

One day I was drawing a particularly complex scene in which I needed many faces with different expressions.  This taxed my memory of collected features as I wanted each person to clearly be different.  As I looked at the individuals I was somewhat startled to actually recognize one woman in the drawing.  “There is Three!” I exclaimed aloud to no one but myself.

Yes, my friend’s name is Three; in Mende it is Sawa.  She was the third born child and her weary mother simply named her accordingly.

I’ve found some other Mende names of curious interest.  There is Bebe which means exactly what it sounds like – Baby.  Then there is Mamaugway meaning Yellow; the name given for her jaundiced color at birth.  Another friend is Bendu which means I Am Here.  I can just picture the first cries of the baby proclaiming to all the world “I am here!”

But my favorite Mende name came one day from yet another friend, Mabinty, as she told me in a jumble of Mende, Krio, and English, the meaning of the name of her oldest living child, a boy named Munda.  A look of cherished pride and motherly endearment came across her tired face as she said, “Dis is mine.  His name de mean, Dis Is MINE.”  She tenderly hugged Munda close and then watched him as he went off to play with the other children; a gentle smile lingering.

When God gives me a new name I wonder what it will be.  Does He base His choice on my actions as His child?  If so, then I have some input into what that name might be.  I want to strive to have a good name chosen for me which will describe me to all of heaven.  I don’t want to so weary my heavenly Father that He simply assigns a number for my name.  And I want to do more than merely proclaim, “I Am Here.”  But oh, how my full heart would praise Him if the Father were to hug me close and announce, “This Is Mine.”