This morning we had our usual Thursday women’s meeting and at the end I found myself in a group of five praying for each other as we usually do. The only thing that was a bit different was that one woman prayed in French and one in Gujurati (the rest in English!) and yet we all felt at one with each other. The language didn’t seem to be a problem at all; the presence of Jesus transcends the language barrier!

It reminded me of two things: one, that there will be so many different tribes and nations around the throne of God as we see it in Revelation - and it will be glorious! And secondly it reminded me of an evening I had recently in an Arab village in Israel. We were on a tour around the sites of the Holy Land. Our tour guide, a messianic Jew with a deep faith in Jesus, took three of us one evening to visit some Palestinian friends of hers in an Arab village. Three generations of the Palestinian family welcomed us so warmly and we immediately felt at home. There were three languages being spoken in the room: Arabic, Hebrew and English… It became clear that several members of the family were believing Christians and were longing to grow spiritually, and we wanted to encourage them as much as we could too.

I found myself with the mother of the family; she spoke only Arabic and I spoke only English. We smiled at each other; I nodded encouragingly and then wondered how I was ever going to get past that to something a bit deeper! Then I noticed her Bible and realised we could converse through Bible verses. I found the third letter of John in the back of the Bible and pointed to the second verse: Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. She found it in her Bible, read it carefully, looked back at me and grinned broadly. Now she knew where we were going!

I then pointed to verse 5: Dear friend, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers and sisters, even though they are strangers to you. Then I found the letter of James, chapter 5 and pointed to the question in verse 14: Is any one of you sick? and I made a praying gesture. She immediately found her little grandson, and the others told me that he had fallen unconscious in the garden with sunstroke two months before. She had been looking after him and had prayed desperately that Jesus would restore him and he had! In fact the little boy regained consciousness and announced that he had seen a vision of Jesus! We prayed for Jesus to bless him and heal him of any after-effects.

It was such a precious time as we prayed for each other in our own languages and then in the language of the Spirit. There was a tangible sense of unity in the room. What the politicians of the world are trying to achieve, Jesus gives ordinary people who want to live their lives for Him, filled with His Spirit. There were no barriers of language or race as we all met together. Jesus really is the answer to everything!