Most if not all of us know that God works in mysterious ways. Some might even call His ways strange. Most if not all of us also probably have examples that have either happened directly to us or to someone we were close to. Well I’m going to tell you about one that happened to me this last weekend. At the time, I didn’t think much of it; it was only afterwards that I started to really see the “strangeness”.
First I have to tell you, for those of you that don’t know, I’m bilingual in Spanish and English. I studied Spanish in high school and really grew to love the language, thanks in part to exchange students that became close friends and also a great Spanish teacher, Abram Ditman. After high school I continued to study the language and majored in it in college and also studied abroad in Chile for 4 months. When I moved to Seattle and found a job working in a community health center where 70% of our patients were Spanish speaking, I was in heaven. Though life has since taken me back to my home town for awhile and now to middle Tennessee, I have, ever since college, looked for ways to stay up on the language. Unfortunately languages are always changing and if you don’t use it, you lose it. In Seattle I found a Spanish conversation class through a local community college. When I moved back to Ashland I was able to connect outside of work with some great Spanish speaking friends who were nice enough to put up with my rusty Spanish.
Since moving to Murfreesboro, I have found that though the job I accepted was advertised as a bilingual job, due to being a specialty office we see very few Spanish speaking patients. So, no worries, I figured I would just get my Spanish practice in somewhere else. I looked for a class at a community college but there isn’t one here in town. I looked for Spanish classes at the local university and every single one is during the day when I’m at work. I googled “volunteer opportunities” and “tutor Spanish” and every other combination I could think of and came up with zilch. I looked to see if schools in the area had after school programs for kids or adults wanting help with English. Nothing. Around Christmas time I got a hold of the volunteer coordinator for World Relief. World Relief is a Christian organization that sponsors refugees to come to the United States, my grandparents worked for them back in the Seattle area for years teaching English and citizenship classes. I figured they would probably have Spanish speaking refugees from somewhere. Well, first, I found that all their refugee families that needed English help were living in Nashville. Nashville is just a bit too far to guarantee I would be able to spend a few evenings a week if not more with the family. So it seemed to be another dead end. Then I got a call in January that there was a family in Murfreesboro looking for English help from a tutor. This was perfect! The family had 3 kids, the dad was looking for work, and it was mostly the mom who stayed at home who wanted the help. Ok, no problem, this was what I had been waiting for! And the family is from Iraq. Um….do they by any chance speak Spanish in Iraq? Hahahah, nope. Should I hold out for a Hispanic family? I decided since I had asked for a family in Murfreesboro and this was the only one, I would see what came of it. I have now been visiting their family twice a week since the end of January. Kadim, Zina, and the kids are great and I wouldn’t trade my time with them for anything. They have truly adopted me as part of their family and I sooo enjoy my time spent with them.
Unfortunately my Spanish wasn’t getting any better. In April I heard advertised on the radio not 1 but 2 language programs that were being held in the summer and were specifically for working professionals. I looked them both up, they sounded great but were over $500. Yikes, that plus the cost of the extra trips to Nashville, and trying to save money for the World Race made it all seem counterproductive. I’d like to say at that point I prayed a nice prayer for guidance but it was more like, “God! I don’t get you, this makes no sense. Why are you making this so hard?! I really don’t know how effective I can be on this mission trip if I spend the 1st 3-4 months getting re-acclimated to the language. This is all so silly, maybe I shouldn’t go.” Ok, yes, I was being very childish. Mostly it was and is a pride issue. Maybe God really didn’t want me to practice my Spanish, but that didn’t make much sense. Maybe there was a bigger picture I wasn’t seeing. All I knew was that I missed Spanish. After all that I knew it just wasn’t meant to be. Pause.
One of the ways I am raising money for the World Race is putting on a silent auction at the end of June. I’ve never done one before so we’ll see how it goes. I have guest speakers coming to talk about Islam and reaching out to Muslims in our community. With that in mind, I figured it would be something I could invite other churches to, even if they don’t participate in the silent auction, hopefully they would benefit from listening to the speaker and having a chance to ask questions. Fast forward to this last weekend.
Sunday evening I went to the Evangelical Arabic church here in town where my guest speaker is the pastor and invited the group to come to the silent auction. It’s crazy, the congregation felt led to minister to the Muslim community so they planted their church literally 100 feet from the mosque…they even share the same parking lot. I had heard the two buildings were close by each other but as I pulled in, holy cow, they are cloooose. Afterwards a few people introduced themselves to me, asked me about the Iraqi family I work with, and were a little surprised to hear about the World Race. How many countries in 11 months? As I talked to them about the trip I explained that my heart really beats for the Hispanic community, hence applying for the trip that’s going to all Latin American countries. The gentleman I was talking to mentioned an organization called the Hispanic Family Center and would see if he could find some information for me if I went again the next week. As I spoke with a few other people I forgot all about it until I was walking to my car and the gentleman was right in front of me. We talked a few more minutes and then he gasped a little and brought out a folder from his car with Hispanic Family Center written on it with 1 brochure left in it. He said that when I had mentioned my love of the Hispanic culture he felt a “tug” on his heart that he was supposed to give me this information, that what were the chances he would have 1 brochure left or that we’d both be at the church that evening. As he handed it to me, he said, “…and now we’ll see where God leads.” Holding the folder in my hands I felt, as cliché as it sounds, hope spring anew. As I hurried off to complete my other errands, I briefly glanced at the parking lot and the mosque just a few yards away and thought, truly, God works in mysterious ways.
