AN ANECDOTE FROM BILINGUAL OR MULTILINGUAL FELLOWSHIP
I share and emphasize ALL this NOW because of a story from our current fellowship dating back a few years.
The following was reported to me as an important but disturbing event in my current fellowship's history. (My current church fellowship conducts its services both in German and in English.)
-"On one Sunday several summers ago, an African member of the church had her father visit the fellowship. This African women then stepped-up to translate the service into the language of her father."-
-"After several minutes, an American member of this bilingual congregation--namely a member from one of the more conservative traditions in the fellowship""loudly got up to leave."-
-"However, before he angrily marched out of the room, this same American stated, "-I cannot stay here because a woman is not permitted to lead, translate or give advice to men in my fellowship.'"-
-"This same American then contacted church leaders in the United States and complained about this very incident."-
-"The subsequent enquiry from the American-side led the German's in the congregation, who have generally been more progressive and tolerant on women's matters, to fear a takeover of their church building, i.e. which had been built with the assistance of American missionary funds nearly 40 years earlier."-
MY JOURNEY FROM BAPTISM TO BEING ASKED TO LEADI have shared with you in face-to-face discussion that I was baptized as an adult on 12th of March 2000 in the waters of the Persian Gulf in the Emirate of Sharjah in the federation of the UAE.
Two days later, I had taken off for a long weekend to Oman by bus.
Before I left for Muscat, I had contacted a small fellowship in that capital city. I was able to meet with the leader of the church and to study the Bible and worship with them.
In the meantime, I had decided to rent a car as Oman was difficult to travel around by using public transportation.
This particular small church fellowship in Muscat, Oman asked me if I would be willing to drive to a hospital in the Omani desert, where a Filipino sister-in-Christ worked as a nurse.
At first, I agreed to undertake the trip and began planning to make the six or seven hour journey into the desert.
In this, I was to be accompanied by a sister in Muscat for holding communion and prayer with that weekend. However, the night before we were to leave this same 8-year member of the church told me, "You will have to give the message, you know."-
"Giving a message"- means that I was to be seen as the preacher or leader or the meeting--e.g. in Acts we read that "wherever two or three our gathered in prayer"- the Lord will be there.
