While in El Salvador, we put on a SLAM camp for three days. We had about 40 students there pretty much all of them only speaking Spanish. This could have easily created a barrier between us summer interns, and the SLAM students because a lot of us don’t speak a lot of Spanish. Yet, we did not let it create a barrier. With the minimal Spanish we knew, we did our best to have conversations in order to connect with the students.
I had some awesome conversations with two boys named Esau and Jeremy on the way to our service project of picking up trash in the streets in a poor neighborhood called Milagro. During that car ride I did my best to develop a relationship with them so they felt the love and care that I and the Lord had for them. I created a time called “Tiempo de chisme” (story time) where we shared a story in the each others language from when we were younger. This had us laughing at a lot, and had me embarrassing myself a few times as well.
We got to the service project and I really tried to get these boys to see the importance of what we were doing in serving the people who lived in this neighborhood. Yet, due to the language barrier it was hard to tell if they were understanding the things that were being communicated. I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t speak better Spanish because I wanted them so badly to feel the importance of investing into the people around you.
When it came to testimony time the next day, I sat next to them. They were reluctant to go give a testimony at first, but I encouraged them to and they went up together. Jeremy started out his testimony… “I want to start with story time.” I smiled at him as he shared about the impact that the sermons had on him, and his desire to serve in the future.
It’s easy to think that a language can keep the Lord from moving in different, but this is a wrong mindset to have. God crosses boundaries in ways we cannot even hope of. This was my prayer that these kids would start to get it. They are loved and the people around them are loved. God wants to invest into them, and he uses us to do it. Love you Jeremy and Esau!