Sometimes, what looks like a barrier can actually become a bridge.
When you are doing missions in a place where you don't speak the language fluently, one of the most obvious barriers is communication.
How do you build relationships when you can't easily have a conversation?
How do you share the gospel when you don't always have the words?
But we've been learning that sometimes, the language barrier itself can become a bridge.
Here in Thailand, we have English Corners every Wednesday with Thai and International university students and on Saturdays with Chinese people. English becomes the common ground. It gives us a reason to sit together, talk, laugh, learn, and slowly build relationships.
But English isn't the end goal.
The relationship is.
And ultimately, the hope is that these relationships will open doors for conversations about something much deeper than language—the gospel.
And we've already seen this happen.
Through our programs and the relationships we've built with students, we have had students choose to follow Jesus.
What started as a lesson became a friendship.
A friendship became a conversation.
And a conversation became an encounter with Jesus.
At our community center in San Kamphaeng, we also spend time teaching in Buddhist schools during certain hours of the week. Outside of that, we teach children from the community subjects like math, science, values, and English.
On the surface, these are simply classes.
But for us, they are much more than that.
Every class is an opportunity to know a child by name.
To listen to their stories.
To earn their trust.
To build relationships with their families and their community.
And hopefully, to create opportunities to share the gospel.
We also hold English camps in villages, where once again, language becomes the bridge.
We teach.
We listen.
We serve.
We build relationships.
I think this is something we often forget about missions.
We can look at language, culture, religion, geography, or even our own limitations and see them as barriers.
But what if some of these barriers are actually invitations?
An invitation to find a solution to reach the gap.
An invitation to learn.
An invitation to listen.
An invitation to enter someone's world before asking them to enter ours.
Jesus didn't simply come with a message. He came near.
He lived among people.
He ate with them.
He listened to them.
He walked with them.
And maybe that's part of what discipleship looks like for us too.
These things may seem ordinary, but they create something incredibly important:
Access.
Access to relationships.
Access to conversations.
Access to communities.
And, eventually, access to the gospel.
Barriers doesn't have to stop us from reaching people.
Sometimes, it can be the very bridge that brings us to them.