Lack of Spanish and French

I find myself attempting to squeeze long quotes down into bite-size, tweetable, snippets more often than I care to think about. It's part of my job. This is fine until I have to do the squeezing and cutting in Spanish and French.

Over the last couple of years working for IFES my language skills have improved; now I can spot the difference between Spanish and French (yes I made that mistake), but they are still not at a level that is really useful for forming sentences.

However I am really blessed to be able to copy my attempted message to a colleague who's Spanish and French far out weighs mine. A colleague who can read through, correct my mistakes or squeeze more characters out of the French.

This is something that I am noticing more and more, and the more I am noticing it the more I am grateful for it.

Last week Grete posted on her blog a quote from someone she worked with, expressing gratitude for her skills:

"Its just a dilemma to be 15-20 years into a career and still feel inadequate--because I have to know about so many things. So, thank you for knowing about photos, newsletters, design, and all that you do."

- Grete Bauder: The reason I do this job.

We all have different skills and talents that can be used to serve each other. Grete uses her fantastic design skills to equip InterVarsity staff workers. Penny used her skills to dig me out of a translation hole earlier today.

Paul, in 1 Corinthans, says that this is an example of the church working together for God's glory. I feel very blessed to be able to see this practically working out each day.