A few months ago Sojourn sent out Jeremiah and Lauren to begin a church plant in Miami. But before moving to Miami they spent 3-4 months in Costa Rica doing Spanish language learning. When I found this out my jaw nearly hit the floor. I have really been thinking for sometime now that Believers need to learn other languages for the purpose of reaching their international neighbors, but here someone was actually doing it! I was amazed! I still am.
I love languages and wish I knew every language in the world. I love to learn them. I love the challenge and being able to meet people where they are. I began to realize it is a God given love. I know I will likely never have the ability to speak all the languages apart from a divine miracle of the Spirit, but God has given me a love to learn what I can to help others. I seem to be better with Romance and Slavic languages and am terrible at Arabic, but I try.
I believe this is the part of the Great Commission and the charge from Acts 1:8. We are commanded to make disciples of all nations and this command is given to all who follow Christ. Today we do not have to go to the nations because the nations are coming to us. You may not be called to full time overseas work, but is there a Hispanic worker in your office, an Iraqi neighbor, a Ukrainian bank teller? Who can you reach by simply attempting to speak their language. Maybe you help with ESL. I really appreciated that last week Nik said, "ESL should be a spring board to us learning there language." Meet people where they are. We know that people respond more readily to the Good News when they hear it in their heart language.
So I challenge you to learn another language. You may not do languages well, but that's OK. It's the effort that is what is important. Do your best. Who can you reach today?
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