An Inkling
I got a
lesson in joy Sunday evening – in Arabic!
And I learned that when it comes to joy, translation is optional.
The
Christian Arabic Church worships on Sunday evenings, and this week they were
ordaining their Elders and Deacons.
Their Pastor, Fakhri Yacoub, invited some of us from the presbytery to
join in. That happy invitation came to
Larry Moffett, Sarah, and me from St. Giles, and to Steve Hartman and Corey
Widmer (newly retired and newly commencing Lead Pastors) from Third.
Our role
was to provide the pomp and circumstance.
They needed no help with the joy, as you can see in the attached
pictures (courtesy of Mark Sprinkle and others), and hear in their music, led
by Emil Awad. And such are their gifts
for celebrating that they made even the pomp and circumstance come alive.
Fakhri did
the heavy lifting of translating Arabic into English and vice versa. That helped us capture some of the nuances of
the moment and helped his congregation understand us as we carried out our
roles. But the joy needed no
translation.
Someday,
in the presence of the Lord, we’ll hear and understand each other fully – along
with the Chinese, Swahili, and Russian speakers. And in the meantime the Lord gives us these
lovely previews, full of joy.
We thank
God for our sisters and brothers in the Christian Arabic Church.
Blessings,
Keith
