Learning the Vocabulary of the Heart

I was recently invited to a baby shower for Manzoor and Deena, a refugee couple who came from the country where my team and I serve. The shower was hosted by believers from a church that had generously provided nearly a whole nursery for the family.

Deena has had several miscarriages. But now she and her husband are preparing to welcome into the world their first child—a baby boy.

It’s been a hard season for them, being so far away from family and isolated because of the coronavirus pandemic. Though they have lived in the U.S. for a couple of years, Deena still struggles with conversational English.

I was asked to come translate and connect with them. Imagine me watching Deena open gifts and trying to explain what a nasal aspirator is. Sadly, she couldn’t recall the word for “booger” in her language. I’ll have to learn that word another time.

Imagine me watching Deena open gifts and trying to explain what a nasal aspirator is.

Deena shed tears as she told me how touched she was by the generosity and kindness of people who are not her blood family. She and Manzoor shared with me their grief, their fears, and their joys. And they expressed gratitude to God for providing me—a new friend who can speak their own language.

In this day and age, I might be able to go to any foreign country and use English and hand gestures to ask someone for directions to a toilet.

But imagine trying to discuss grief and sorrow without a shared language. Or hope and salvation. Slang, idioms, metaphors, sarcasm—they don’t usually translate.

To communicate the Good News and share with people beyond a surface level, it’s essential to speak the same language.

They expressed gratitude to God for providing me—a new friend who can speak their own language.

I will always be a learner of Manzoor and Deena’s language and culture. It is not easy. While serving on the field, I have been laughed at and misunderstood countless times.

But something miraculous happens when a person living in a foreign land finds someone who knows their heart language. Speaking the same language opens doors into homes. Even greater is that it opens hearts to connect and to share—and to hear Good News.

I am thankful that God has given me the time and the honor of learning another language so that Muslims might know Him.

May it be that the Father raises up more Jesus followers to share the Good News with Muslims wherever they live—in other countries, in the U.S., and everywhere in between. May His children receive His invitation to live incarnationally among Muslims and learn their heart language.

• Praise God for raising up messengers of the Gospel who are committed to learning new languages to share Jesus with Muslims.
• Ask the Lord to bless them with a supernatural ability to learn and speak the heart language of the people He’s called them to reach.
• Pray for Manzoor and Deena to be drawn to Christ and to hunger for His Word.