Languages!

Hello everybody.  Today was a pretty decent day.  I did go out to karaoke last night which was fun.  Then I got up at six this morning to write the one page paper I forgot we had to do for class.  Then went to my class, which was history.  We dove in and started talking about Augustine.  It was a good lecture and really getting into the meat of the class so it is a lot more fun now.  Then after class I went back to my room to slept until chapel, and ended up sleeping through chapel and lunch.  I woke up five minutes before class and seriously thought about sleeping through it too.  However, I drug my lazy butt out of bed, and went to class.  So far for the first four weeks I have perfect attendance in all my classes.  Which for those of you who don't know my undergrad attendance record, this is actually quite a feat for me.  One semester in undergrad it took me ten weeks until I finally had a perfect week of class attendance.  Some of you may think that is terrible, but I thought it was actually quite brag worthy since my lowest grade that semester was a B in Hebrew II.  However, since this is now graduate school, I am going to try my hardest to have perfect attendance all three years of classes.
Then our second class was Pastoral Ministry which was just another guest speaker.  This guy was from CTCR.  CTCR is Commission of Theology and Church Relations.  It is a special group set up by the synod convention since the early 60's, that write and publish resourceful brochures and pamphlets discussing and helping with our doctrine.  They do several other things too, but the publications are their biggest resources to churches and pastors.  So it was a pretty interesting presentation.  Then I had to go back to my room to change and headed back to the Sherbrook Village Nursing Home for another day of visits.  I volunteered to talk with John, a man we walked past in the hallway.  I pushed him in his wheelchair down to the family room and visited with him for almost the full hour.  Now this wasn't as exciting of a visit as last week but was still good.  He began by telling me about how his church has two services.  One in English, and the other in Slovak.  He then proceeded to tell me how his parents came over from Austria Hungary in 1912.  Between his parents, school, and church he learned English and Slovak, as well as some German too, while he was growing up.  This was a cool story, except he went on to tell me this one story over and over for the entire hour.  I really didn't mind and just listened the entire time well he kept telling me it.  He did throw in a new detail each time, which made it a little more interesting.  The one thing I really noticed was that everything was in the present tense.  Now after parsing so many Greek and Hebrew verbs, verb tense is something I notice now more than ever.  He talked about his parents and siblings and childhood as if he was still that little boy learning three languages at once.  He talked like his parents were still alive, and as if his entire past, present, and future was all talking place that very instance he was talking about it.  I had a good talk with Rev. Roger after my visit.  Rev. Roger explained it like this, our memories are organized and filed away by event and time like a filing cabinet.  His memory is all those events and times just in one big mess like a pile of photographs.  You see bits and pieces of several different events all at once.  He told me that my visit with John was a very therapeutic thing for him, because he mostly just sits by himself and lives in his own mind.  So anytime he has a chance to visit with someone and get those things out of his own mind, it is good for him. Then I remembered that while I am there to learn, it is more important that I am there for the people I am visiting with rather than for myself.  I felt like I should go visit with John for another hour and listen to his story a few more times just to give him some one to talk to.  He was a nice guy with a great sense of humor and I did appreciate getting to spend time with him.  It also reminded me that God's Gospel needs to be taught and spoke in all languages.  I even included that in my closing prayer, how no matter what language we speak, we can use that language to praise and worship our magnificent God.  Then Rev. Roger told us four guys that he is genuinely impressed with us.  He said normally out of the groups that he gets assigned, one or maybe two of the guys stand out as above average.  He told us all four of us are a notch above any average he has seen.  He even told us he was bragging about us to some of his pastor friends.  So that is always a good feeling to know someone notices we are just generally friendly and Spirit-inspired people.
So the title "Languages" isn't about my Greek or Hebrew, even though I do need to translate both of those subjects yet tonight, but rather about no matter who you meet, or how many languages they speak, I hope and pray we can all speak one language and that is the language of the Holy Spirit.  For just as the birth of our Church on Pentecost, even still today, all people of all languages need to know the truth of Christ and the love and mercy of our God.  All Praise be to Him!
Dear Heavenly Father, 
Help us to remember that no matter what language someone speaks, he or she is still Your child and needs to know Your Word and truth.  Please with the help of the Holy Spirit help us to always share the comforting, saving message of You and Your Son Our Savior.  Through You all things are possible, and all things are always in Your control.  For this we praise You and give thanks to You for having mercy on us Your sinful children.  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.