Picture from the New York Times.

We smile because we can’t speak. At least not in the same language, not quite, not yet. So we try with our eyes and our hands and expressions to communicate - to show that we are interested, to welcome, to befriend. I’ve learned a couple of words, but their English is way better than my Nepali. But I’m learning.

For one hour a week I try to communicate with our new Bhutanese friends, and its sweetly awkwardly sweet. I bow and say “Namaste” by way of greeting and I can see its appreciated. We photocopy the Bible passages into Nepali – and God’s word becomes accessible. We had this great Sunday School curriculum for the kids at church, and its utterly useless right now because we have yet to work out how to communicate. And right now it seems that a church play set without broken glass, and scooters and trikes and toys are God’s smile of provision that means more to these children in this strange new world. And we talk, but most of all we smile.

For me it’s one hour a week, but for them? I remember how bewildering it was when we first moved to the US, navigating the system, the roads, the bureaucracy, even the food. And we moved a team, in a world where we speak (mostly) the same language. How bewildering must it be to move here, from a refugee camp to an unknown world? It’s as though the struggle has just begun again. And no matter whom a refugee was in their home country, now they had to start again, usually from the bottom up. I once watched a series called the New Americans which featured a number of refugees who in their former land were business leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists and political activists. Now in the US they were cleaners, kitchen porters and hotel maids. They’d learned to not hand in their resumes (UK read CV), so people wouldn’t learn quite how qualified they were. Makes you think.

We are learning new things daily, and leaning on the Lord for direction. In the meantime, our friends have practical needs. Clothes, skills, forms, language learning, and we can be His hands and feet for that. We’ve learned from Nepalese and Bhutanese Christians we’ve met that most have become Christians through encountering Jesus in dreams or a family/community member being healed in the name of Jesus. So we’ll practice what we preach, and we’ll pray for the power of God to meet them where they are at. And we’ll smile until to find the words to communicate everything we want to say.