Fiesta of Faces

So there I was bouncing down the road for an hour in a fifteen passenger van. Why was I doing this you ask? I was beginning to wonder the same thing myself. For the past school year, I have helped teach the English as a Second Language class at our church. Our ESL group was invited to a International dinner in Manhattan. As we drove 3 students were speaking Mongolian, 2 students were speaking Japanese, and 2 more students were speaking Chinese. I was speaking nothing. At this point, I engaged the young man seated next to me in an English conversation. It was very intriguing to learn about China and his perspective on big cities, college and American football. I told him that I was always the shortest kid in my class. He told me in China I would be a mid-sized girl. Maybe I should move to China!

In the meantime, we had arrived in Manhattan. Once we entered, I immediately had an excitement surge. There were literally people from all over the world! As we put on our name tags, I had a devious thought. Instead of putting my name and country, I simply put my name. The students also became excited as they saw people from their country. There were people from over 40 countries at the dinner. As we ate, one student asked me, "Why didn't you get any fried chicken?" Who wants fried chicken when there's tofu and all the other delicious things on my plate that I could not identify?

After dinner we had the Roll call of the Nations where each country was acknowledged. One Taiwanese boy purposely stood up when they called Vietnam, but no one other than our table could tell the difference. Then, we had the fashion show when people who had worn their traditional clothing would parade across the stage. The clothing was beautiful. At the end, a young man from China gave his testimony of how he came to Christ here in America. He was brave to do so and hopefully convicted others.

Once again on the way home, I heard three different languages around me, but it was okay this time. I loved seeing all the different people groups together. My one disappointment is that only one person came up and asked: Where are you from?