Last night, our Wednesday evening program started off slowly, with just one Farsi speaker and four Macedonians, who knew Albanian. Even so, despite the small numbers, translation was already complicated. One Macedonian guy knew German well, and said he would translate into Albanian for his wife and the other married couple (he only sometimes did, but at least the other man knew German, AND they kindly asked if they could take the Albanian New Testaments with them! :) Then, one more Farsi speaker arrived; we are so thankful to have a Farsi translator! In the following ten minutes or so, other refugees slowly arrived… one woman from South Sudan came, who understands some English. Then one guy from Bangladesh walked in, with a friend from Pakistan! Thankfully they knew English quite well. Still then after that, an old friend of ours from Mongolia came in, too! As I was already in the middle of the introductory words at that point, we had to try to sort out the language needs and think on our feet. Thankfully we had a few moments to figure it out during the worship songs (with help from YouTube, we were able to have one worship song for almost each language present).
The preacher for the night, Matthew, taught the Word in English, which the South Sudanese woman and the Pakistani and Bengali guy understood, and I (Ken) translated from the front into German for those who knew German: our faithful Armenian volunteer, our Mongolian friend, and the two Macedonian men. Our Farsi translator fulfilled her role well for the two Farsi speakers, translating from English to Farsi, and therefore despite this most unusual mix of many different languages, it basically worked out! Matthew gave a clear message from the teachings of Jesus, explaining the judgment of God but also His grace that is open to all (from Matthew 11:20 to 30).
We also had some good discussions afterwards. There was the small Farsi group, Matthew got to answer some questions of the Pakistani guy, Jeremy and Neal connected with the Bengali guy, and I got to explain more to one Macedonian man. Meanwhile, Carol spent some time with her friend from Mongolia, and the lady from South Sudan had some conversation with Stephanie and then enjoyed music in her own dialect from South Sudan that is on YouTube! She was so happy. Herself and a few others couldn't help but dance to the beat for a while. :)
It was such a unique evening, we were left somewhat speechless by the end. Pray for the seeds of the Gospel that were planted. May the Lord water them and inspire the people to read His Word and seek the Truth.
-Ken
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