When I asked the man how long he had worked there, he answered by telling me in very broken English where he was from. After spending a few minutes trying to find out from him who would be our translator, he finally understood what I was asking and with a big smile on his face he said, “Me, I translate!”
As soon as I heard that he would be our translator, I knew there had to be a mistake, so I waited until the director came knowing that he would know who would really translate for us. When he arrived and told us that there was no one else, I panicked and started making phone calls to find anyone who could translate for us for that week. With no options, we got in the vehicle to go to the seminar. Mitch and I prayed most of the way, not knowing what would happen, and wondering what to do. I was thinking it might be best to just let the translator teach the whole week since he was a gifted teacher himself and it would be better for him to teach than for a terrible translation of what we were going to share. We prayed and prayed and I was confident that we were supposed to go ahead with the seminar. The Lord had brought us there though I didn’t understand why.

The next morning as I stood up to begin teaching at the seminar I fully expected it to be a disaster. I said my opening and was stunned when the translator quickly translated everything I said. I continued to speak and became more and more confused as he didn’t miss a beat, translating every word. I assumed he had to be making it up but there was a man in the front row who spoke perfect English and would correct the translator every time he made a mistake. The entire day he only had to correct the translator about six or seven times! Mitch and I were totally blown away and couldn’t believe what we were witnessing, a miracle was happening in our midst!

Afterwards we went up to him and his partner and asked them, “What just happened?” They told us that he had been up all night asking God to show him how to understand us. When we said it was a miracle, They responded by saying, “James, in our ministry we expect the Holy Sprit to work, It’s not that big of a deal!” Most of this was said by the translator’s partner because his English was not good enough to tell us all that!

“It’s not that big of a deal!” How humbling is that? God just supernaturally enabled him to translate perfectly while we were teaching and he just stays “we expect the Holy Spirit to work.” We were supposed to be the teachers, but ended up being the students.

Right now this translator who understood perfectly every word coming out of our mouths while we were teaching, could not have a simple conversation with us because he does not understand English very well. Yet the Lord opened his ears during the seminar when it was needed. God is SO good!