I Was Blessed!

The assignment was fairly easy. A number of Sudanese Christians from Kansas City and Rochester, Minnesota were using our church building to support and pray for a Sudanese family that has been worshipping with us in Marshalltown, Iowa. I was asked to say a prayer at the beginning of their program. No problem! The program started at 7pm on a Saturday night, after our regular worship service was already completed. I said my prayer and then they asked me to say one at the end also. I was wondering how long the program would last, but okay, I can do that.
The program consisted of a number of these friends, who had all once lived in the same tribe in Sudan and who now all lived in the United States for several years; speaking in support of Mameer and Anna (the people in our congregation) who had purchased a house in the last year and suffered through a couple of recent, physical accidents. About 30% of them spoke in English and the others spoke in their native language, requiring someone to translate into English. After the program, which lasted nearly 2 hours, they insisted I come eat with them (at 9:00pm ?). So I did, and I discovered that becoming a missionary in Sudan would require me getting used to food that I'm not sure I want to get used to.
I came that night to be a blessing and as is so often the case, it was I who was blessed. Here are just a few of the lessons I learned that night:
1. There is a reason the apostle Paul said that someone speaking in tongues required someone else having the spiritual gift to interpet what was being said (I Cor.14). I still could have nodded and smiled without an interpreter telling me in English what the speaker had said, but how would I have known that I was nodding and smiling for the right reasons?
2. I have brothers and sisters in Christ anywhere and everywhere that I find people (regardless of their skin color, the language they speak, the food they eat, or the customs of their culture)who love Jesus Christ (John 1:12&13; Galatians 3:26-28). These members of my spiritual family probably had a deeper faith in God than I did, because of the many hardships they have seen God bring them through.
3. These individuals are probably a whole lot more grateful for the blessings of living in America than most of us Americans. They prayed for our country with a fervor that many Christians in America don't even do. They remember what they didn't have in Sudan and the possibilities they do have in America (Luke 7:40-50).
4. We are all nothing more than nomads passing through this life. This world is not our permanent home (Philippians 1:27; 3:20&21; Hebrews 11:13-16; 13:14; I Peter 2:11) because God has something even better prepared for us.
I look forward to that day when all my brothers and sisters in Christ from various tribes and tongues, can gather in our permanent homeland where we will all praise our God in the same language. I look forward to that day when there will no longer be any barriers between us because we are in the presence of the lamb of God. Until that day, may ALL God's people live, labor, and love in such a way as to be an answer to Jesus' prayer, "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).