Providence

I look in every pocket of my bag twice. "Hang on," I tell the friend I'm meeting, "I think I left my wallet in the car." I check the front seat. No wallet. Back seat. No wallet. Under all seats. Trunk. Bag, again.

No wallet.

"Did you come straight here from your house?" my friend asks.

"Yes. I remember I had it in my hand on my way out." I think through my trip from house to coffee shop: Walking from my apartment to the car, wallet in hand. Realizing I'm low on gas. Stopping to fill my tank. Setting my wallet on the closed trunk to free up both hands to open my stuck gas cap.

... Driving away with the wallet still on the closed trunk of my car.

- sinking feeling -

Millisecond of hope: Maybe it's still there, at the gas station?

- deeper sinking feeling -

The gas station is more than thirty minutes from the coffee shop, and—remembering the general aura of its location—I am not hopeful. I figure I might as well call, though, to see if it was turned in. The woman who answers the phone is much more helpful than I expected, and even goes out to the gas pump I used to see if it's on the ground. No wallet.

Call-waiting comes in on my phone while we're talking, with an unknown number. Maybe someone found my wallet?! But my phone number isn't in there, so how...? I call the number back, somewhat puzzled.

A very friendly voice answers. "Oh, hi! Is this Marybeth calling back? This is N. at Insurance Company—someone found your wallet and our card was in there, so he called us hoping we could contact you. He left his name and number if you want to call him and arrange to get it back."

I am astounded. I call the number she gives me, and he does in fact have my wallet. It turns out that he saw it in the middle of the intersection by the gas station, recognized it as a wallet, and turned around so he could pull over and retrieve it. ("I'm sorry, I think some of what you had in there may have fallen out—there was too much traffic for me to get all of it," he tells me. Um, you're apologizing that you didn't risk your life darting around a major road to gather every scrap of paper from a stranger's lost wallet? Seriously, please, no worries.) He then spent a good part of half an hour trying to track me down, including stopping by my apartment, and then drove out of his way to meet me at a shopping center to return it.

I lost a few gift cards (probably what went flying out) and I think a car or two may have run it over, but I have my wallet back—complete with credit cards, license, and even my cash (okay, it was only two dollars—but both were still there!).

So, while it's in no way sufficient since I'm sure they don't read this blog: cheers to the guy who put so much effort into returning my wallet today, and to N. at my insurance company for being willing to help (and checking back in with me to make sure it worked out), and to the woman at the gas station for at least taking the time to look around. They all made a potentially-very-stressful-situation into an amazingly-not-stressful one.

And yay God, hey? I am so glad to have it back. (I'm going to miss my just-filled coffee shop gift card, though. Sigh.)

Unity

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Colossians 3:16

"What's…" I hesitate, trying to guess the pronunciation, "lah-teh?"

N. looks up at me, and I repeat the question, pointing to the Zomi word "Late," at the top of the page.

She shakes her head and laughs her "I don't know—no English" laugh. She flips to the table of contents and we look at it together. With some referencing and counting, I figure it out.

"Oh, Psalms!"

"Psalms," she repeats. "Late. Psalms."

_________

How can we encourage unity in the Church, across so many languages and cultures? How can we have fellowship when we can't even talk to each other?

These are questions I often ask myself when I pray for this community. There are many Christians here, but—understandably—they (we) tend to spend the most time with other believers of like-language. Yet while I advocate first-language Biblical teaching and fellowship whenever it's possible, the Church is also this mysterious thing that does transcend language and culture. These believers I see, these believers who can't say more than "hello" to me or to each other, are brothers and sisters. We are united in Christ. But how, how do we live out that unity?

As a step towards it, A. and I invited several women over to my house, to read the Bible and pray and at least physically be together.  Turns out that N.—a Zomi speaker from Burma—was the only one who could make it. Her English proficiency is quite low (although much higher than our Zomi proficiency!), but—all nervousness aside—I think she was as eager to meet with us as we were to meet with her. We read a story in Genesis, each of us following along as we alternated between Zomi and English, and then there was a pause. This is where, in an English Bible study, we would share thoughts or ask questions or make observations. Eventually, A. and I each said a thing or two in the simplest English we could, but we could tell N. couldn't really understand us. And she had an all-too-familiar expression of frustration on her face, of thoughts and ideas to offer and no language to share them.

There was another pause, then something beautiful happened. N.'s face brightened, and she began flipping purposefully through her Bible. She pointed to the passage she found, and—once we figured out that "Late" was "Psalms"—A. and I were able to find the same passage in English as she read aloud in Zomi. The passage went along with one of the themes of the Genesis story we had read, and I could see the connection she had made between them. The psalm reminded me of something I had read earlier that week, and we all flipped there together. And that's how the next two hours unfolded: the three of us side by side, cross-referencing and pointing and reading together, communicating through the words of our shared God.

This last week, we met at N.'s house instead of mine. When I arrived, the living room was already full: A., N., N.'s husband and sixth-grade daughter, another Zomi-speaking woman, a Jarai-speaking neighbor, and another American, were all sitting together with their Bibles out. Again, we all just read and prayed and pointed out meaningful passages to each other. Bl., the only Jarai speaker there, can't read in any language and understands even less English than N., and yet even she seemed fully engaged and wants to come back.

No, we didn't "study" the Bible in the traditional, American sense of the word. We didn’t apply hermeneutics or discuss theology, or look at the historical factors surrounding any given passage, or ask application questions. But it was one of the richest "Church" experiences I've ever had: three languages, three cultures, eight people with no reason to meet except the shared loved of the same Savior, spending time seeking him together. The chance to see what connections the eyes of different cultures saw between passages, and which verses were important to them—a tiny glimpse of how God is speaking to them and the thoughts I wish they could share with me. English, Jarai and Zomi all voiced in prayer in a Zomi home. 

Yes, it's only eight people, out of hundreds.  But unity has to start somewhere…