Living Abroad in Another Language
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Take, eat As a pre-seminary student, Ethan ’18 lived abroad in Tübingen, Germany during the spring of his Junior year. Prior to the official start of his semester, he participated in an internship in Wittenberg and often traveled to church in nearby Leipzig, a destination for many refugees from the Middle East. What he experienced in this multi-ethnic congregation had a deep impact on the lengths a pastor may go to connect with the members of his congregation. Listen to Ethan’s story. |
The pastor would say ‘Take, eat’ in the mother tongue of whoever was receiving. He would be saying it in Arabic and Farsi, in German, in English…Having Pastor Fisher as an example of someone who clearly knows his congregation really well that he’s even dedicated to learning Farsi in order to be able to have these interactions with these people who are fleeing to Germany, to Europe for many reasons some of them are religious…to offer that peace, and reassurance and then to be able to hear that in their own language, I think is a beautiful thing. For me…to be able to be so interconnected with the members of the congregation, even to the point where I should even be learning their language and their mother tongue, to be able to communicate these truths to them, it’s just a beautiful thing.