Our translator Pastor Dulek had left us so we didn’t know how to verbally communicate to the people in the community. We figured that we should put a hold on visiting homes until another translator came, but we had no timeline of when that would ever happen. Teaching English and building chalet’s didn’t require that much verbal communication, but the chalet’s were almost done. It had been several days since we had done a home visit and Brook had suggested that we visit Simbang in the community at least to say hi. God had been speaking to me about how nothing should prevent us from loving people and engaging then in relationships, not even a language barrier so I agreed with Brook that we should go. Besides, Jesus always goes to where people are; if I don’t follow him, I’ll be left where I am uninvolved in His activity. Love is all about building those relationships.
Brook ends up getting a rash all over her face and had to go into town an hour an a half away to get treatment for the swelling. I asked to see if anyone wanted to go with me to the villages and just Karen from Team 12:18 was both willing and available to visit homes so we went into the community. We hung out in the company of about six women at two different houses for two hours. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know their language because we ended up performing charades to communicate. Later that day, I was really surprised because during our group meeting, others started saying that it seemed like a good thing what we had done that day and that they wanted to start engaging the community through home visits as well regardless of whether there was a translator or not. People had been somewhat hesitant about going at first, but they changed their minds. I learned a lot about indirect influence that day. People are always watching how we act. When we choose to follow the way of Jesus and risk, others begin to seize the opportunities that were always there. Others become willing and make themselves available if we choose to be willing and make ourselves available first. 
