Bored In Church

I had been sitting on a folding chair in the second row for forty-five minutes. Paul squirmed on my lap while Dan fidgeted on the seat between Randy and me. I was beginning to get restless myself. I wasn’t getting much out of the visiting pastor’s message, which was not unusual. You see, we were sitting in the Khmer Church of Harrisburg, and the guest pastor preached in Khmai, his native language. I only knew a few words in Khmai, so the message I heard was “chatterchatterchatter pra ang (okay, that was God) chatterchatterchatterchatter srawline (okay, that’s love) chatterchatterchatter sy kdei (that’s forever). After a while I was exhausted, trying to pick out words that I recognized, so that’s when I looked over at Mrs. Kim.

Mrs. Kim had attended a solid evangelical church in the area, made a profession of faith and was baptized. When a friend told her about the little church where the English language sermons were translated into Khmai, she decided to check it out.

Our small congregation was made of Cambodian refugees who, with the exception of a couple teachers, came from the lowest class of their society. They were subsistence farmers who plowed their rice paddies with water buffaloes. Many of them had received only enough schooling to read and write. But Mrs. Kim was different. Her late husband had been an important judge in the Cambodian court system. She was a “high-high” lady; in fact, when Phnom Penh was about to fall, the Americans airlifted her out of the city. She was spared the killing fields, though seven of her eleven children died there. Now she was living in subsidized housing, raising her grandson and trying to stretch her public assistance check to make ends meet. Even so, the other members of the congregation were shy around her. But that soon changed.

Mrs. Kim had been coming to church for perhaps six weeks when I heard a great commotion in the adult class. Stepping out of the children’s classroom and into the hall, I peered through the glass pane by the door. Everyone was excited and noisy, but smiling, so I shrugged and shooed my charges back into their room. Later I learned that, in the middle of the lesson, Mrs. Kim had popped up her head and exclaimed something in Khmai. The interpreter answered her enthusiastically and everyone else started chattering with excitement. The teacher, Bill, went nuts trying to find out what was happening. Finally the translator calmed down enough to explain, “She said, ‘OH! Is THAT what it means!’” Later, as Mrs. Kim shared the testimony I would read at her re-baptism, she told me more. “I’d heard about Jesus before,” she explained, “but I didn’t really understand until I heard it in my own language.”

In the years that followed, I could never really make up my mind if Mrs. Kim was a pastor’s greatest dream or a pastor’s greatest challenge. She sat front and center at every service, her eyes riveted on him. When he proclaimed truth, she beamed and nodded. When he asked a rhetorical question, she answered him aloud. If he said something she didn’t understand, she interrupted him and discussed the matter until she had a clear picture of what he meant. And when all the Khmai started running together in my head and I started to feel restless, I could look over at her and content myself, knowing that she was getting it.

Sometimes when I stand in the worship service, we sing a hymn that I think might put me into a coma before we get to the fourth verse. That’s when I need to look at the faces of the saints who’ve grown up on that hymn, who hold it dear to their hearts. I can see the steadfastness and peace on their countenances and thank God that He speaks their heart language. Or maybe a praise song has me wishing for a volume knob that’s just not within my reach. I can look at the kids, many of whom come to church on their own, without their parents bringing them. I can see the joy on their faces, and thank God that they’re getting it. I can be content, knowing I serve a God who loves us enough to speak all our languages, and I can thank Him that He chose to speak mine.