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Worshiping Beyond Language Barriers

 

 

A few weeks ago, we attended church in a town called Hmarkhawlien. It was a pretty small church, and, like most of the EFCI churches, the service was in the Hmar language. As usual during worship I couldn’t understand what was being said, so my team sort of stood at our seats and hummed the tune or listened to the congregation sing. Then I saw a few of the older women get up out of their seats and start to march in a circle around the front of the church. I saw these women worshiping and dancing and my heart wanted to get up and dance with them. I stayed in my seat though. I didn’t want to embarrass myself or seem like a foreigner imposing on their church service. Besides that, I had no idea what the song was even saying! So, I let my doubts and excuses take the lead and remained where I stood until worship was over.

The next week, we were at a district conference in Saipung with around 600 people in attendance. After a song or two, a few ladies got up and started dancing again, and then a few more, and then a few more until they had to move back the first couple rows of benches to make space. Again I felt then tug on my spirit to go and join them, but still I just worshiped from my seat. That is, until an elderly woman grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into the front. I joined the joyful dance party circling the front of the church. I didn’t know any of the words, so I just made up my own or simply smiled and hummed as we all marched round and round singing praises to our God. Worship is it’s own language. Even though Hmar sounds so different from English and I only understand a few words, in that moment we all understood each other.

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