Did you know that 80% of communication is non-verbal? I remember learning this in college and of course I could share that statistic with anyone and agree but I didn't know how accurate that was until Haiti. I thought I had a pretty clear understanding of loving with word (verbal) and deed (non-verbal) until I was faced with a language barrier. We had translators and they we're absolutely incredible, but they weren't able to have every conversation with us. We were left with the few words that we knew. Particularly "hello, how are you?" in about three different ways. Once you get through these few phrases (and of course you can't understand the responses) you're done- out of conversational amo. So we had to learn how to love through action. The clearest picture of this came to me while we were spending time at the Agape Girls Orphanage. Most of the younger girls had spread out amongst the team climbing in laps and enjoying the coloring book and crayons we had with us. But many of the older, teen age girls were sitting close together- their body language revealing the many walls that stood between us. So doing the only logicial thing I could think to do I went to our box of donations and found a nerf football. I began tossing the football to the girls and after a little while I had a few of them up and playing. We must have tossed that ball for almost 2 hours as we were laughing and fully engaged while not saying a word (well they spoke to each other.. I just had nothing to add:). It was amazing to watch their walls come down. It started slowly but the more we played the more connected we were. We went from being confined to a very small area- them sitting down closely to one another and me standing, to several of us spread accross the room playing hot potato. We even added a second football to make things a little crazier. Laughter and play is indeed a universal language. I didn't get to verbally share the gospel with these women on this particular day but I got to love them and tell them through action that they are beautiful, lovable, wanted young women. I pray that my small interaction with them would plant a small seed in their hearts that another team might be able to water or even harvest. Claiming 1 Cor 15:58 which says, "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain." I believe that God will use our seemingly limited interactions (which truely were not that limited because of the 80/20 communication) for His glory and for His kingdom advancement! Continue to pray for these women and for all of the Haitian people that we fell in love with. God is in Haiti and we want to continue to claim His victory there.
