Salekhard 103

There is a language barrier here.

One that makes it difficult to communicate. 

One that makes it impossible to fully appreciate all that is going on.

One that causes me to be uncomfortable .

One that causes me to keep track of Deborah or David when we are outside of the house.

As I sit or stand, the one “left out” because I do not understand the language that everyone around me obviously understands and speaks clearly, I can get frustrated and feel stupid because I cannot answer simple questions. I can recognize emotions and understanding  on faces, but I am not able to participate in conversations.

I wonder if this is the way unchurched people feel when they are in a group of believers who only speak “Church-ese”. It makes me resolve to be more sensitive in my word choices.

I recognize joy on the faces of my brothers and sisters as they sing praise to God. I do not have to know the language for my spirit to join theirs in worship as they sing and I listen. When I recognize a tune and sing in English as they sing in Russian there is a beautiful blending.

I notice that a believer and I have the same passages highlighted in our Bibles. Their Bible is filled with words that would be useless to me, because I cannot read them. Yet we are both fed by the same Word. Nothing compares to having access to the Word in your own language. My soul is encouraged and my desire to support Bible translation efforts is refueled.

There are no words to describe the feeling that came as I heard my son share the Word. It was the one part of the service I was able to participate in fully. As I sat, hearing an interpreter speak the words so the other hearers could understand, there was a sweetness that came from seeing the believers around me nod their heads as I did, in agreement with the teaching.

Despite the language barrier, 

there is something indescribably beautiful 

about worshipping with believers in another culture.

A small foretaste of the scene in Revelation 7:9-11

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude from every nation, from a ll tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.' "