The sun was rising over my shoulder casting a radiant light across the sand while the deep turquoise ocean bobbled little boats. As I was in aw of God’s beauty I was so excited for my time with my Father that morning on the beach of San Juan del Sur. I began my time listening to Papa and having him tell me the three strengths I have from him- things that I don’t have to strive for, things that I already possess and need to walk more boldly in. He revealed to me three things: life-giving, joy, and love. With each he expanded but for love specifically he kept telling me that my love is not just for my teammates, my squadmates, my family, people that I feel close to but its for strangers, its for people whom I can’t speak their language, it is a love that I need to start showing even to strangers even through language barriers.
As soon as I heard God speak this to me, a man walks up and starts speaking Spanish to me. I ask him to repeat and say it slower because I can’t understand what he is saying. Meanwhile, I look behind the younger guy and see an older guy with him already taking his clothes off ready to go for a 6:30AM swim. Eventually I figured out he wanted me to watch his clothes and stuff while he and his dad went for a swim. I told him I would and I continued to have my quiet time. While they were swimming I began to look up “joy” in the Bible because I desire to know what the Bible says about joy and every instance it is spoken since God said it’s something I possess. While I was looking this up the men come back to get their clothes. They begin talking to me and with a blank stare on my face I tried my best to communicate back. We talked about how I was on the world race and how I was a missionary traveling the world. They asked where I was going next, if I liked to surf, if I liked San Juan, all sorts of questions that I tried my best to answer. Soon after they got back my teammate Tayo came back from her walk on the beach and sat beside me. She began journaling while I was still trudging my way through talking to these guys.
After a while I began to get impatient and kind of annoyed because I just wanted my quiet time with the Lord and I wanted to dig more into what He wanted for me. So thinking if I kept reading and ignored them, they would get the cue and eventually leave. Well about 5 min passed and they still didn’t leave. I looked at Tayo and said will you please tell them that it was nice meeting them but I’m trying to read. Tayo told them but instead of taking it as a cue to leave one of the guys sat in front of me trying to read my Bible. With a chuckle Tayo looked at me and said just go with it.
I began trying to explain that I was looking up joy in the Bible in different places and I was currently in 1st Chronicles. This didn’t go over well because I couldn’t really explain myself, they couldn’t read my English Bible, and they didn’t know what I was saying. So I then thought to myself, you cannot go wrong with the Gospel. I flipped to John 15:11-12 “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” I had no idea how to say this in Spanish so I read it in English multiple times while one of the men tried to repeat after me what he heard. The dad wasn’t understanding or following along so the next thing I knew he was pulling out his phone calling someone. Two seconds later I had a phone to my ear with someone speaking Spanish to me. Apparently the dad called his pastor and wanted his pastor to read me that verse in Spanish. After he hung up the dad asked me that since my Bible is written in English if the love and joy John was talking about is just for English people. I explained (tried to explain) to him that the love I have and the love John was talking about is for everyone. Just because I’m American and just because my Bible is written in English doesn’t mean that I only love Americans or people that speak English but I love everyone around the world because Jesus loves everyone. With a smile on his face he started singing the Michael Jackson song “We are the world, we are the children” and linking his fingers together. Reaching out to him I linked my finger with his finger and smiled. I asked him if I could pray for them and they said they wouldn’t be able to understand but okay. So I prayed and afterwards he said he didn’t understand it but he believed it and that he wanted us to be blessed and be careful this next year. It’s my hope that they understood what I was trying to say to them with my lack of Spanish speaking skills but I believe because of the Holy Spirit they received whatever God wanted them to receive.
I’ve really been frustrated not being able to speak the language but God so beautifully revealed to me that my love is for everyone even those I can’t fully communicate with. That even though I can barely communicate he is still working and interceding on my behalf and that smiles, prayers, and hugs can go a long way. And even when I have a plan to spend quite time with Him its okay to be interrupted because he shows up so much bigger and greater. So I’m learning to just go with it.
