College of Athens – Intercultural Communication

This blog is for Alex Fields from the College of Athens, but feel free to read it if you’d like! 

While being in Nicaragua for the past two weeks we have experienced such an amazing culture! I am just in awe of the people here and how it’s already transformed me so much. It has filled me with joy while watching the gratitude, faith, and generosity of Nicaraguians, and I want more of what they have. For example, we met someone with cancer the other day and she stated how in the midst of her cancer she is declaring herself cancer-free and knows that God is with her and heals her; this strong faith is something I want more of. During circumstances, we can know that God is good because of who He is, not what we are going through. One of the ministries we get to do is called prayer walks where we go to houses and pray for people and share the gospel. It is so amazing – some of the best times of the week! One of the ways that can be tricky in communicating the gospel is through the language barrier. I have noticed many people get frustrated in their abilities to not articulate what they want to say from English to Spanish and it’s difficult to know what is going on when we are using a translator to communicate things. I am so proud to say I have been working on my Spanish for the past three years and have been able to communicate super well here! There have been a couple of times when I was able to do a whole house visit as the translator for my friends and create a sweet space of communion with a sister/brother in Christ.

Another example is the dump ministry. We go to the local dump to preach a sermon and spread hope! Just yesterday I was sharing what the Lord put on my heart there and because of the language barrier, I had to pause almost every half-sentence to get it translated. It was a little difficult to go back and forth and not know if the words I said were translating in a way they understood (I’m not fluent, just conversational). However, it was so special to share with the crowd. So while the language barrier is a thing, I love that it doesn’t always need to be the words we say, but rather the heart-to-heart connection we make with each other to share the love of Jesus; like in the way I just got to sit and eat with some people and we didn’t say many words. While this doesn’t seem like it’s accomplishing anything, I believe I am connecting to a person more when it’s from the heart than any word could say. I am so blessed to know Spanish so I can talk here easily, but I cannot wait to be thrown into a place where I don’t know a lick of their dialect and learn to lean into the heart-to-heart space of Jesus’ love.