I walked into the doctor’s office and instead of it being a few chairs full, almost every chair was taken. I was a little frustrated with myself because I had missed my appointment the day before and had to be rescheduled for today. Now it seemed I had picked the busiest day. I hadn’t ate breakfast yet and it was getting into late morning; I was ready to get in and get out. I had already waited for a good 5 minutes, which is a long wait at this doctors office, and there were at least 5 or 6 more people waiting in front of me. I begrudgingly submitted that my idea of a quick visit was out of the question.
A few moments later a young man and his mother walked through the door. He strode right over to the empty chair catty-corner to mine, plopped down and then extended his hand toward me. I grabbed it softly and told him, “Hello” with a smile. His mom asked him if he could tell me his name and he quietly said, “Luke.” “My name is Irene.” He gave me a crooked smile back. In the next second he pulled out a bin from under his chair; he’d obviously been here before. Luke rummaged through the bin and found a few children books and started flipping through the pages, marveling at the pictures he saw.
He didn’t have the words to easily tell me what he was looking at, but he started pointing at pictures on the page excitedly. This went on for the next ten minutes or so. Luke showing me pictures, me describing back to him what he’s pointing at. And again I received that sweet smile that lit up his eyes behind his wire-framed glasses.
As this was going on, I’m thinking about the shirt I’m wearing with the inscription printed “Love needs no translation.” I had this printed on shirts thinking that this would be so true overseas when the majority of places we’d be serving would require a translator. Language is no barrier to love, but God revealed another aspect of understanding to me this morning.
Loving people fully doesn’t start when I land in Cote d’Ivoire, it starts right where I am. Even in our home country, surrounded by people who speak the same language as us, there are people who we encounter who won’t be able to converse with us. It may be that Luke knew some sign language, but I didn’t. I could have let this be a barrier between me and him. I could have picked up my phone and filled the waiting time with texts, Facebook or a number of other things.
Instead, I chose to engage him. I chose to ignore the fact that I couldn’t “speak” to him and instead just loved him however I could.
I’m learning that to give love, it never requires translation; it just requires action.
