today's photo credits: April Walker & Jon Sherrill
"Day 5 - Your language is very good."
[January 24]
This is the day something happened that is still hard for me to believe actually happened. This is also the one day that someone else wrote the team's blog post for me! So, I'm writing from memory. I'm writing partly because I want others to know what happened. I'm writing mostly because I don't want to forget what happened.
On this particular day, the construction team worked in two villages: Lagutu and Pugwini. In Lagutu, the team helped construct a piggery and dug the foundations for the new church building. They also helped construct a piggery in Pugwini. In Pugwini, a man who recently came to Christ donated all his land to Sports Outreach - it's on this land that a church and school and ministry center will be built. What a beautiful display of the sacrifice and generosity of a man who wants his village to know Jesus.
So, this was the day we went to the prison. I was on the medical team again, and we spent the morning treating & praying for inmates at a local prison. This truly was a time of taking the Gospel to the “least of these.” Patrick Hurley summed it up best when he said “These men and women are poor, in prison and sick. The world does not care about them. But today the love of Christ was poured out to them through this team.”
My role in the medical clinics over the past days had been pretty consistent and mostly involved praying for patients. Sometimes I would have a translator so the person knew what I was praying - but often I wouldn't. This didn't really bother me, because I'm talking to God when I pray, and He doesn't require a translator. But I had gotten to thinking about how incredible it would be if I could pray in their language - in Acholi. So I began praying quite fervently that God would give me the gift of speaking in tongues (which I've always
been afraid of before) - but not just any tongue, and not some unknown language - but specifically the Acholi tongue. That by the power of His Spirit, when I opened my mouth to pray over patients, my prayer would be in their language - OR that God would give my patients' ears the ability to understand - that they would hear my English as if it were Acholi. And that God's name would be praised for such an amazing display of His power!
So, we're doing our thing at the prison, running the medical clinic, seeing patient after patient. Praying for patient after patient. And then there's this man - I wish I had a picture, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the prison. But there's this man, and I put my hands on his arms and I ask him his name and I tell him my name. I tell him I'd like to pray for him in the name of Jesus. He doesn't speak much English, but recognizes the name "Jesus" and nods his head. I begin to pray. I notice that he's very responsive while I'm praying - he's murmuring lots of "mmm-hmm"s and such. I finish praying and say Amen. He takes my hands, looks me in the eyes for the first time, and says, "Your language is very good." Stunned, I squeeze his hands, smile, and say thank you. He leaves the clinic, and I'm left standing there in awe because either this man was strangely impressed with my English, or he just heard me pray in Acholi.
This is the God we serve.
I mean FOR REAL.
FOR.
REAL.
I. Love. My. God.