Dear Friends and Family:
It is with continued gratefulness that I begin this letter. Each month I’m overwhelmed at how God meets my needs through you in the way you give so generously to Him and to me. Thank you.
I continue to ask for your prayers as I learn Romanian. Language learning is coming along, but at times I’m just overwhelmed and wonder how I will ever be able to communicate coherently. To learn the language is a really big deal to me. Most English speakers in our community talk to one another in English, but everything else is in Romanian. This means all our meetings, chapels, Bible studies, etc. are, if possible, interpreted for me. But I know I often miss things because of my lack of language skills. And there are so many times when I want to have a conversation with a child, but don’t have the words to say what I want to say.
As I often don’t have words to speak, presence, being present, is an important part of what I’ve been doing. By that I mean the ability to really be with someone, even if there aren’t words, even if we can’t communicate, I can still sit with someone and they know that I am with them. And, not only is there presence, but there is touch. Touch is what I’ve been thinking about the last couple weeks: what do I communicate with a touch, a face cupped in my hands, fingers through a child’s hair?
While I’m not a touchy person, I do love to be touched. Hands that linger on my shoulders or play with my hair are welcome reminders of care and love. And, I think, they can be the gentle agents of Jesus, of His power, His kindness, His nurture.
Today I was reading in a book called Green Leaf in Drought (sent to me by Melody TenKley). A missionary woman finds herself in early Communist China unable to minister as she thought she would be able. Instead, she lives among women and girls giving just herself, her presence, and her touch. The book then quotes Hudson Taylor: There is a mighty power in contact…They are not clean, and sometimes we are tempted to draw our skirts together; but I believe there is no blessing when that is the case…There is much power in drawing near to this people and there is a wonderful power in touching people.
Many years ago I heard Jon Corson speak about the way Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob. I wish I could find that message again, because I remember distinctly how he spoke about Isaac touching Jacob, about giving his blessing by touching him. And how we can do the same, we can bless a life simply by touching them. Hudson Taylor continued by saying: If you put your hand on the shoulder of a man there is power in it…there is something in contact: it is a real power we may use for God.
It’s a simple thing, squeezing an arm or rubbing a back, but maybe more is communicated about love and kindness and Jesus in this way than in a thousand words, for if I speak with the tongues of Angels, but have not love I am but a clanging cymbal. And I think of these kids who have seen and met and heard much violence in their young lives and perhaps have known little of kind touches and gentleness.
One day I’ll be able to talk with them, and that will be an important day. But this, too, is an important day for maybe it lays the groundwork for greater blessing, for a time when words are not only spoken but are also understood because once we sat and touched and they knew they were loved when there were no words.
I close with an excerpt from my blog some weeks ago, but that sums up not only what I’ve written here, but also what I’ve been experiencing in the last month:
I want to do more, feel like I’m capable of more. And when I admit this, I hear a little voice ask me: are you capable of less? Can you handle not doing much of anything, of feeling powerless, of humbling yourself? It is humbling for me to be asked to do less, rather than more. It is a feeling of powerlessness to just sit and watch and wait… One day, I was walking down the hall and caught the eye of this kid who has the most gorgeous brown eyes that sparkle with mischief and are lined with thick brown lashes. I sort of looked at him out the corner of my eye with a bit of a smirk as if to say: I know you’re up to something but I still think you’re such a doll. He laughed at me, I laughed at him, and I hold that moment, hoping that even though it was only a moment, so small, that such a moment can hold the capability of the incapable, of the dependent that humbly rely on the power and love of God.
My love,
April Folkertsma
O.P. 6 C.P. 256
Galati, Romania
800.760