If I’m being honest, going into ministry, I was terrified. How can I possibly connect to people who don’t even speak the same language as me? After my first day of Ministry, I kind of dreaded going back. It completely drained me trying to interpret what they were saying! Not to mention these kids have no idea that I don’t understand them. How do I plan activities? So many hard, frustrating thoughts rushed through my mind. I decided to to give this unknown language up to God; a cool thing happened.
God revealed to me that love does not need to come through words- and he didn’t just say this, he showed me. The next few days, love came in all different shapes and sizes. As I entered our morning daycare, two sweet girls greeted me with so much joy running and shouting “Emily!!!!” They grabbed my hands and pulled me to the ground to play with my hair. One girl ran to grab flowers, leaves and 3-leaf clovers (not 4-leaf sadly hehe) to put in my hair. Then they grabbed my hands and pulled me into their playhouse to “cook“ me a meal. Crushed up leaves are delishous! (; We then danced around together for about 20 minutes, all of us doing a conga line. I taught them to twirl in circles by them holding my fingers as my dad once taught me, while I spun them. They LOVED this. And then comes the cutest thing of all… one of the sweet girls always pulls me in close, her hands cupped around her eyes. I do the same and press my forehead against hers. She whispers many words in Spanish, then pulls back and chuckles. I chuckle too. We do this over and over and although I have no idea what she is saying, there’s one language I know: love.
We then head over to our other ministry site. Here I am greeted once again with shouts and cheers, “Emily!!” Although it is soon nap time, no one wants to sleep as they climb all over me and use their best english to describe the colors of my outfit. I finally get them to lay down on my lap as I stroke their heads and tickle their backs until they fall asleep. I just took it all in as I looked at their sweet faces and saw Jesus. I finished with my team a project of transforming this dusty, dirty room into a new classroom. What a joy it was seeing all the students and teachers admire this new area that they would soon be able to learn in. These are moments I’ll never forget. Love comes in all shapes and sizes. I am blessed to be able to love these kids in a way that will be evermore powerful than words themselves. What a gift it is to serve them.
