This morning, I spent considerable time researching smartphone applications that will aid in translation. Our upcoming trip to visit our sister church in Holguin, Cuba, is driving my research, and I’m pleased to report that I have found a tool to help us understand one another better.
It’s true that our team will be traveling with our missionary friends, Stan and Kim Dotson, who are bilingual, but it’s always helpful to have a way to communicate, if only to say, “
Dónde está el baño?”
(For those without a translation device handy, that means: “Where is the bathroom?”)
Our preparation for our trip to Cuba is going well. As we have learned, Cuba’s economic realities are starkly different from ours, and they are desperate for goods that we often take for granted. To provide help, each Cuba Mission Trip team member has taken on the responsibility of gathering supplies to take to our friends at Kerygma Baptist Church.
Our capacity and willingness to listen to our friends in Cuba have been paramount to our preparations. Although our two countries’ diplomatic relationship remains hostile, we do have the means to listen to one another. Choosing to ‘love kindness’ means listening to our friends and learning what they need. Without the help of technology and communication applications on our phones that bridge the gap between us, we’d be guessing at what Kerygma Baptist Church needs.
I’ve found that listening, while imperative for any relationship, does not come naturally. Listening requires receptivity and patience. It involves access, connection, proximity, and a willingness to learn. Listening demands that we put the focus on someone else rather than ourselves.
Listening figures prominently in discipleship. Jesus frequently speaks about his followers’ need to have “ears to hear,” and God explicitly commands Peter, James, and John to listen to his Son. In Jesus, God wants us to hear him more clearly. But as we see from Jesus’s followers, the practice of listening is frequently fumbled. Like the Twelve, we may fail to listen to Jesus because listening requires effort. More to the point, we may ignore Jesus because we don’t like what we’re hearing.
Sometimes we hear what God says, but we may distort and twist Jesus’s words to justify our self-interest. It needs to be said: A disciple who does not listen to Jesus is no disciple. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus is who he says he is. To be a disciple of Jesus, we must listen to him and obey his commandments.
Yes, things get lost in translation even under the best of circumstances which is why it’s paramount that we dedicate ourselves to the task of establishing trust. Understandably, we’ll have trouble hearing and understanding one another from time to time. Our resolve to stay connected to one another will help us comprehend what needs to be heard.
Think about it. A conversation will suffer if the distance between you and a friend is too great while you hike together. You’ll fail to hear all your friend has to say, and much will be lost in the ambient noise of the forest. We are traveling to Cuba at the end of this month to shorten the distance between us. Doing so will help us as we listen for understanding and strengthen our friendship.
Fun fact: When I tested the iPhone translation app with the question, “Where is the bathroom, or toilet?” it erroneously translated it in Spanish as “Where is the clown room?”
Oops.
I suppose it’s possible that we’re not the only ones who have trouble translating what we’ve heard into something meaningful.