Sorry for the late post…
As we walked into our ministry the first day, most everyone on the team was not confident in their spanish but had a previous experience through family, high school, or college classes. Then there was me with two, week-long trips to Guatemala and about three hours on a “try to learn spanish app”. So basically I had NOTHING.
I venture into the unknown and go up to this little kid. In about 3 minutes, I use up all the Spanish I had. I look over at one of my teammates who said she is did not know anything and she is talking about the weather, what the current political state of Ecuadorian government is, and explaining the theory of quantum physics all in Spanish. I was asking my teammate “What and who are you?” At the same time, I am riding the struggle bus telling this little girl I love her while trying ask her what her name is. I thought to myself that this is not going to be a good month.
I love talking to people and getting to know them. When I can not talk to someone, it puts a damper on that. The first few days of ministry were hard. I felt worthless. I would sweep, mop, pick weeds, and other things, but I was not interacting with people. That was the main thing I wanted to do.
A few days later, an opportunity arose to work in the kitchen for a day to help the the cook and a volunteer prepare the lunch for the kids. I will be first to tell you that I love being in the kitchen. It is my place of comfort. At home, you can sit in someone’s living room all you want but when you go into the kitchen with them, you are now family. That is where deeper connections happen.
So I jumped on the opportunity. I peeled potatoes, beets, and carrots. I chopped onions and cilantro. I washed dishes, made passion fruit juice, and so much more. We laughed, mostly at me, and tried to learn about each other. Because the volunteer spoke English, I even got to learn some more Spanish. At the end of that first day in the kitchen, I was so satisfied and my heart was full. I felt for the first time that month, I did something that mattered and I felt useful.
The following week, as I was watching a podcast, the speaker made a reference to the Tower of Babel and I decided to look into it little more. So as most of you may know, the people of Babel all spoke the same language and came together to try to build a tower to the heavens. God saw what they were doing and said,
“The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!” Genesis 11:6
So God said in His Word that if we all speak the same language, then nothing will be impossible for us? What? How have I missed this?
I thought back to that kitchen and even though I was not able to speak a lot of Spanish from my mouth, we were speaking the same language: the language of cooking. We were together, getting it done and there was nothing impossible for us. We could have cooked all day long.
This made me think. What if we all spoke the same language? What would the world look like?Would could we do?
Then I realized, we can speak the same language. We could start speaking the same language by serving one another over ourselves. We could speak selflessness. At the root of it all, we could speak love. If we spoke love to everyone, not with just words but our actions, what would the world look like? We could change the world. Nothing would be impossible for us.
So with that said, what do you think is impossible? Just imagine that is no more because we all speak love. So I challenge you, how can you start speaking love, or even speak it more clearly? What can you do to make the impossible possible?
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Also see more about our ministry check out my talented teammates blog HERE
