I’m starting with a story I heard with our four small children sitting beside me at church. A Wycliffe Bible translator from Australia was telling us a gripping story of finding just the right word to interpret a term in the Bible. I’m sorry to say, I can’t remember the word he was trying to interpret nor the term he found but I do remember he had to eat a large, white larva (witchetty grub). The crunch yet gooiness of it was quite disgusting. He couldn’t look or be disgusted as that would be insulting to his new friends. Do you know how that goes? We pretend everything is fine but it’s not. We don’t want to offend someone. So, we say, “Yum, that’s good” or “Thanks”. That was true in this case and down he swallowed it. Somehow, miraculously, that experience led him the word he needed to interpret.
That experience was all about connection and being brave. Connecting meaning to a word, connecting with people and being brave to step out of his comfort zone. I learned an important lesson that Sunday. That was also the Sunday I prayed I would be able to go on a mission trip. Someday, please, someday.
