Twice a week this month we hop on a local bus and make our way to a night class for adults trying to improve their English in the community. We spend hours talking and getting to know them, correcting foreign sounds, and explaining the strange inconsistencies in the language that most of us were born speaking. Although it feels strangely menial, we help in this way by enabling them to become conversational in English so that they can pass a placement test that will allow them to continue their education in the states or accept job offers from other companies that highly value the “skill.”
Carlos is one of the friends I have made at this night class. He works all day as a mechanic and immediately after his 8-hour shift he comes to class (evident by the dirt on his clothes and hands showing a hard day’s work). Before I met him, he knew quite a bit of english already, having “picked it up” from an organist who taught him how to play. He expresses to me his ultimate longing to travel, and he tells me that he comes to this night school because “english is the key.” And he is right; in most of our world english is the key to mobility.
So is english (or traveling for that matter) a right or a privilege? In my experience, I have learned German in Austria, Thai in Thailand, and recently re-visited Spanish in Central America- all languages learned in their country of origin because in these extremely different locations, english was used as the base to teach me from. Even beyond that, passage to these countries was simplified because I was born speaking the language that extends all these borders. I have been granted undisputed rights to a certain quality of life that includes a universal language and access to transportation.
Why is this realization important? We need to be proactive about awareness, the line between recognizing privilege and stepping into entitlement is a very slim one that we cross more than we think. I’ve even seen some of my entitlement come out on the race through various expectations of cities, such as a access to transportation, walkable neighborhoods, affordability, and even in things as “basic” as the ability to communicate and understand through english. Carlos reminds me that to many mobility is not something that is always feasibly considered- it is a privilege. He tells me that I am “living his dream,” and not even in the sense of getting to see the world, but of the privilege to bear the gospel into new places.
Where do we go from here? Privilege is inherent, the best thing we can do is learn to steward it well. There are thousands of unreached people groups in our world. No church. No bible in their language. No Christian music. No knowledge about Christ. The only way these people will be reached is by a person leaving their home and friends to live in a foreign culture until He is known.
We have been granted a great gift, but more importantly a great responsibility- it’s time to make moves.
