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Being at English Camp each year is a blessing to my soul. I love the ministry of this camp, and it is my honor to serve there. However, being there this year also ministered to me in a personal way. My husband and I have spent the last 3.5 years serving in a German-speaking church. During my first two years in Germany, we went to an English-speaking international church which was a profound blessing but also vastly stunted my German acquisition. Anyway, now that we are serving in the German church, I speak much better German and I love getting to minister in this way. The churches in Germany desperately need support, and we count it a privilege to serve there. However, it is still something special for my heart and soul when I get to participate in corporate worship in English. Of course, I listen to worship music in English on my own, and sometimes my husband and I both sing together in the car. However, there is something unique about corporate worship, being surrounded by fellow believers singing the same truths to our God! While I am encouraged when I sing worship to God in German, remembering how He is the Lord of ALL peoples of ALL languages, there will always be something uniquely special about singing together with the people of God in my own heart language. The same goes for preaching. I can understand a German sermon, but it is simply good for my soul to occasionally hear the Word of God preached in my own heart language. I was moved to tears almost every day this year at camp when we sang songs in English together. Until I moved overseas, that is something that I took for granted.
Consider this: of all the roughly 7,400 languages that are spoken around the world, only about 800 of them have the full Bible translated into their language. What if you had to learn an entire new language first just to be able to access God's Word? That is the reality for almost 1.5 billion people across the world. Furthermore, even languages that have the Bible often have very few worship songs in their own language. Consider the many people you sit by in church every week who come from another country and are worshiping and hearing sermons in a language that is not their heart language. Of course, it is our choice to move away from our home countries, but still consider the sacrifice that is and the blessing it is for you to lift your voice with others in the corporate gathering of the saints in your first language, the language that you pray and think and dream in.
In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled believers with the ability to speak in many other languages so all the people who were there could hear about God and the mighty works of Jesus in their own native language.
"Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?'" (Acts 2:5-8)
It matters to be able to learn about God in your own native language. Would you take a moment today to pray for all the people around the world who do not have the full Bible translated into their native tongue? Pray for translation work going on around the world.
Also, thank the Lord that you can read the Bible, hear sermons, and worship God in your heart language. It's things like this that are easy to take for granted amidst all that is going on in our lives. Practice gratitude and sing with joy on Sunday knowing that you are blessed to be able to do so in a language you understand and that comes naturally to you.
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