Wearing the shoe on the other foot

I got a taste of what it is like to be in a place where people do not speak your language. Last night Angel Barios spoke at LCC and he spoke in spanish. With my limited french and 5 years of helping my kids through latin class, I was able to pick out enough to get an idea about what he was saying (and then it helped a lot when he started translating some of it!) but not enough to really comprehend the entire message. This was a very enlightening experience.

For me, when someone is speaking about Jesus, I want to know and understand what is being said! Any new thing I learn about my Savior is water for my thirsty soul. As I was listening, I knew Angel was talking about Jesus, and that in itself brought warmth to my heart, but at the same time, I was hungry and frustrated.... wanting more. How frustrating it must be to so many spanish speaking people in our area to go to church week after week, wanting to learn more, wanting to converse, wanting to have relationships with people and yet being held back by lack of knowledge of English.

There has to be more we can do for this segment of the population. I have to admit, sadly, that I never really thought about the difficulties the hispanic community faces on a daily basis. I am glad for this opportunity to walk a few yards in their shoes. I like being made to think. It is a wonderful thing to be lead by someone with the heart to reach people by any means, that thinks outside the box and is constantly challenging us to reach the next level.

I am going to look into what it takes to get an ESL class going. Maybe that could help. I might even look up spanish tutorials on the web :)