I don’t know Spanish at all and people where we were in Argentina don’t really speak English. When I am in a language barrier situation, I can do one of three things:
- Check out because I don’t understand
- Learn their language so that I can converse with them
- Just let the love of the Lord speak for itself through me
If I’m honest for the first 3 or 4 days I chose number 1. Partially because I was a little tired from traveling and still a bit jet lagged. But mainly because I didn’t know the language and felt like God wasn’t gonna do anything this month because of it. I was discouraged!
It didn’t take long until I totally felt convicted of this and felt the Lord telling me to lean in (and I also heard my dad’s voice in my head saying the same thing…haha)
I listened to both of those voices and started to in to both numbers 2 and 3. I wish I could tell you that I’m fluent in Spanish now but if I did that’d be a lie. It wasn’t until I started to lean in that I would see what God had for me this month.
Little background on our hosts
This month we were with a family, Marcos, Paula and their four kids. They used to live really comfortably in Buenos Aires until they felt the Lord telling them to give it up. God gave them a heart for orphans, and they started to adopt. After adopting a few kids, the government started to ask them to take in orphans. As of now, Marcos and his wife have 15 kids! They outgrew their home and had to find a place to fit them all. During their search, God was at work himself. So someone ended up donating an old school to them where they now call home!
So that’s what this month’s ministry held for me: doing life with this amazing family, being with the kids playing games, and teaching Bible to the kids. For the first time, I taught, and what a better topic than ADOPTION. With the help of Ashley Soto translating, I was able to testify to them!
There were times where I had the opportunity to go to town with Marcos and I chose not to because of the language barrier. With the encouragement from the Holy Spirit and my team leader Soto, I actually went to town with him one time to pick the kids up from school. While waiting for the kids, Marcos wanted to show me around town. Everyone in this town knew him. We’d stop by little corner stores and people were excited to see him.
Marcos wasn’t just showing me around town and showing me to his friends. Marcos was boasting in the Lord and how good He is to his family and how much He loves them by sending our team. He felt so loved that God would send people from America to this small town that even some of his own people don’t even know about just to be there with them, and share in the mission God has called them to.
After this day that I went to town with him every time I got the chance!
I may not speak Spanish and Marcos doesn’t speak English. But that doesn’t matter, because GOD SPEAKS ALL LANGUAGES!
Hash tag that!!
