At St. Paul’s, every day is Pentecost

The English-Speaking community on a Sunday morning

So far almost everyone back home has asked me – what’s the #1 surprise or challenge that I’ve encountered in my new life here in Rome. While a close 2^nd is navigating the geography of what I might call the original spaghetti street system, it’s actually something different entirely. Every day without fail (usually multiple times a day) I’ve been astounded by how many different languages go into every part of life at St. Paul’s.

Everything here – every activity from eating breakfast to staff meetings to Sunday worship and serving at the Refugee Center always seems to involve at least three languages. By the end of the day, it’s not uncommon for me to hear or interact with as many as seven or even ten different languages! For those of you back home in America for whom – like me – living in an English-only world is an unquestioned reality, this can be absolutely mind-boggling. Here’s what I mean:

Joining the Spanish-speaking community, watching fabulous Colombian dancers
to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Communidad Latinoamericana

On an average morning I might get up, say Morning Prayer with a few others in English with a community of five or so folks, representing four different home countries and three first-languages. Perhaps next I’ll walk down the street on a busy Roman block directly outside of our church (not unlike the shopping districts of New York or London), hearing passing tourists and locals speaking a variety of languages – commonly Either Italian or English and perhaps, Spanish, French, German, Russian and or others. I’ll go to get coffee or some groceries, speaking to the workers there in Italian (although at this point my Italian is really quite limited).

JNRC refugees in an English or Italian language lesson

I come back to the church and stop into to the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, a place that serves refugees from more than a dozen countries and a myriad of regional and tribal language groups. Written signs and spoken instructions are often given in four languages – Italian, English, French and Arabic– because most of our refugees come in knowing at least one of those languages already. Commonly those from North African countries have some familiarity with French because of those nations’ former colonial relationship with France. Arabic also is well known among many of the refugees also because most are Muslim, and the Qur’an is only considered holy in that faith if read in Arabic, not in translation. Beyond the four “standard” languages of the JNRC, many refugees there are native speakers of Pashto, Persian (also known in certain countries as Farsi, Dari or Tajiki), or one of at least a dozen other nearby languages if they have come from Afghanistan or the surrounding nations. Likewise those from North Africa may have grown up speaking Hausa, Bambara, Yoruba, Fulani, Tuareg, all of which span several large countries along the vast Saharan stretch from Mauritania to Chad. In addition to these, many of the refugees also speak some of the dozens of smaller tribal languages from North Africa or Central Asia.

JNRC guests, volunteers and staff
come in many colors, nationalities and languages!

Believe it or not, it is common that most of the refugees could be fluent in at least three if not four, five, six or more different languages!! (For most Americans looking on the refugee crisis from abroad, it could be easy to assume that the hundreds of thousands of new immigrants are unschooled, unskilled and uneducated – but in many cases their linguistic skills dwarf those of the average American.

Moving on from the JNRC after lunch on an average day, I might have a meeting with my colleagues at St. Paul’s. Recently at our weekly staff meeting, English, Italian and Spanish were all spoken at different times during the session. As there were eight people present representing four different mother tongues - and almost all of whom are also fluent in at least one other, but not the same one – it simply made the most sense to do it that way. As one person struggled to think of English word, they might say the word in another language so that someone else could translate it for them. And because Spanish and Italian are largely mutually intelligible with one another, sometimes one person would ask a question in Spanish and the other would respond in Italian or vice versa, particularly if one of the two is not as comfortable in English. Perhaps ironically, we sent the last staff meeting planning a trilingual service when our bishop will be here to celebrate the 24^th anniversary of our Spanish-speaking congregation.

Officiating a service of thanksgiving for a lovely couple!

Next, on a standard day, I might easily be officiating a Japanese marriage thanksgiving service - a concept about which I will write in much greater detail in a later blog entry. Long story short, instead of hosting large and expensive weddings in their hometowns, Japanese couples often choose to have legal marriages at their local courthouses and fly to large churches in the West, including ours, for a very small service of thanksgiving.) Usually the liturgy is in English with an Italian-Japanese translator and a couple that might only speak Japanese. Somehow or another, it all comes together!

After the service and after I’ve had a quick dinner, it’s time to spend a few hours practicing my Spanish or Italian using either books, online software or the help of my dear mission partner Paola. Not suffering from any lack of ambition, I’m somehow trying to pick up not one but two languages at the same time! But in a place like this – no wonder!

Having written far too much here, I’ll reflect a bit more in a later post about what this very multilingual climate says about me and about my own cultural background. But for me, suffice to say that I feel so blessed to serve a God with no need for translation. Glory to the One who created each and every tongue and who understands every one of them. Somehow that Holy Spirit born into the world on the day of Pentecost makes it all possible. Amen