“I want to speak the language of my God.”
These were the words a young woman, Sasha, said to me in one of our very first english classes. We had all split off into groups, and originally I was with a different group of women. The translator then came over to me and asked me to move over to Sasha so that Rose (my teammate) could have a break. Sasha doesn’t speak very much english so it takes a lot of concentration to communicate. One of the first questions I asked her was how many languages she could speak. She told me she was studying Hebrew. When I asked her why, she simply answered. “I want to speak the language of my God.” What she didn’t know is that her response shook me to my soul. I had heard a variety of reasons why people study different languages. That was the simplest yet most powerful.
Sasha and I talked for a few minutes and it was like the Lord was in my head helping me understand everything she was trying to say. Since she didn’t know much english she often got stuck on words. Every time this happened; the word she wanted would automatically come to my mind and I would say it aloud. She clapped her hands and said “You understand me so well!” We then got into a discussion about her family. She had been married for five years and loved her husband very much. I asked her if she had any children, and instantly her eyes welled up with tears.
“I’m sorry” She said as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “I do not have children. But I want very bad.”
With tears pouring down her face, she poured her soul out to me in broken english.
“For many years, we try to have children. But my husband very sick and no children happen for us. My mother ask me why I have no children…I have nothing to say. Other than that I do not know.”
For the past five years Sasha and her husband were trying to have children. What I gathered is that the doctors told her this was never going to happen for her. My heart broke as I sat there crying with a woman I had known for only fifteen minutes. She said that over the years she watched all of her friends have babies, and she longed for one so badly. I could never have prepared myself for what happened next.
Sasha wiped her tears away and began to speak again.
“I do not have children now but….I believe.
I believe that my God is a God who can do miracles.”
The pure faith that poured from her every word was mind blowing. I then prayed with Sasha and said goodbye. I have not seen her since.
All I know is that I will never forget that day I was teaching english in Tiraspol, Transnistria. The day I met a woman whose faith made me check my own.
As Sara Groves says in one of her songs…
“You make me wonder what I really know of love, and what I really know of God.”
