Babel

Whoever decided I should have a blog (and that may have been me...) was silly. I hardly journal for myself, and between traveling during the past two weekends and having my first exam yesterday, the concept of writing anything not required for a class has not been that appealing. For what it's worth, you all can rest assured that I will not be overwhelming you with posts in the next three months.
Moving on...
We had small groups at church again last night, and since I have been gone for the past two weeks, it was pretty up in the air about what small group I would be in. In the process of everyone dividing heading off to the classrooms and odd corners of the church, I found myself tagging along with a group of girls who work at the school that is sponsored by the church. Six of them are from Germany, and two are from Texas. Another girl from Calvin, Courtney, was there as well. We met up with five ladies from the church - one is from Columbia, and at least two are from Denia, but I do not know where the other two are from. At least five different cultures and three different languages gathered in one place for one purpose because of one God. How cool is that?
As we sat down to start the Bible study, one of the girls from Texas asked me in English how well I understood Spanish. I thought she was concerned about me, so I told her that I usually understand things without much trouble. She nodded and said, "Oh good. Do you think you could translate for me?"
Throughout the whole Bible study, Courtney and I took turns translating back and forth between Spanish and English. Meanwhile, two of the German girls translated for the other German girls. Most of the time, the leader of the Bible study would talk in Spanish, and then simultaneous translation into German and English would happen on our respective sides of the group; the leader would ask if everyone understood and would continue upon confirmation. Every once in a while, someone who spoke only English (or only German) would ask a question, it would get translated into Spanish and then translated into the other Germanic language.
The process was often painfully slow and humbling because no one in the group spoke all three languages well enough to understand them all at conversation speed. If we had tried to build anything, it would have taken us centuries. However, an hour later we had worked our way through a discussion on one tiny phrase: "love does not envy." In the process, we talked about the difference between longing for something that builds God's kingdom and desiring something for personal gain, and at the end of the hour, I was left longing for one thing: "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" (Acts 2:4). How cool would that be?