Practice

Last night, my wife and I were on a date and we went into an ice cream store. As I was ordering ice cream, the name "Mustafa" came into my mind. After paying, I asked one of the servers who Mustafa was and he turned around and pointed to the other man behind the counter. Mustafa turned and asked why. I asked him if he had a problem or pain anywhere because I was a healer (a healer makes more sense in our context than if we tried to explain the whole Jesus in me healing you theology at this point). He didn't have any problems.

Later, as we sat outside, I got the word "army." I asked one of the other waiters to come and talk for a second and I asked if anyone in his family, an uncle or someone had been in the army. He said no, but he had been in a recent war in the region. To be honest, I didn't know where to go from there, so I said, "That must have been difficult." He agreed. The language barrier was obvious, but it was good practice.