Words. Thousands of gooey vowel-loaded words crackling with strange consonant combinations and lashed together with suffixes and conjugations. That is the stuff a missionary needs. Words that shock people, stop people and stir people.

Unless you have been overseas and needed to locate a toilet fast, you really don’t know the worth of owning a few foreign words (which, of course, are not foreign at all to foreigners). The right word in a time of need is a friend indeed.

Words are to a missionary what knives are to a cook. Knives are sharp, dangerous and do wonders to an onion. Sure, a missionary can microwave up a bland, barely palatable conversation with a Travel with Berlitz guide, but it will have all the appeal of ramen noodles or tepid oatmeal.

Words are tools, leaping to a missionary’s mouth, rearranging listeners’ thoughts and parsing and paring their preconceived ideas. Words are gospel-telling power tools. Simply put: No words, no power. A missionary evangelizing without command of the native language is like a heart surgeon working with a crescent wrench.
When I first arrived here in Turkey, I was powerless. I knew how to say, pink and banana and fish. None too clearly, mind you, because I would always say, “the banana,” instead of “a banana,” which misled the listener into thinking I had some certain, special banana in mind.

Granted, there were instances when my short repertoire was quite powerful—like when I wanted to buy a pink fish or inform someone about a specific banana. But other than that, I was a zero in this society because my mouth had no words. Yes, I had a mouth. Yes, I had ideas. Yes, I had plenty to say. “Why, I am even educated!” I would encourage myself. (Then, after a few hundred episodes of painful wordlessness, “Why am I even educated?”)

Sometimes I would blurt out long strings of thoughts—deep, wonderful, world-changing thoughts—while my listeners puffed on cigarettes and dreamed about the soccer match they were missing because they were listening to this foreign idiot say, “Blah blah blah the banana blah blah.”

Living so far from the amber waves of grain has rendered my dearest word friends powerless. Spicy English adjectives and adverbs that I have wielded since my youth have no effect here. I need thousands of new Turkish word friends like bak, sev, dirilt, and kurtul (look, love, resurrect, be saved).

It’s odd to have so many useless English words rattling around in my head. Here’s an analogy: Imagine going to the supermarket to fill your pantry. You unload your heaping cart, and the checker scans everything. The total comes to well over a hundred dollars. You pull out your wallet with a flourish and find it filled with colorful Japanese yen! You smile sheepishly at the checker—you’re sunk. You don’t have the power to do what you intended. You have the wrong currency.

When we first arrived here, I would board a crowded minibus to get home, but I didn’t know how to get the speeding machine to stop. I would squeak out an English, “Stop!” But instead of the profound decelerating effect I hoped for, the driver would shift from second gear to third, and my apartment building would fade in the distance. It was as if he had heard nothing.

I listened to others and learned that what I needed to exclaim was, “Moose sigh it!” Why any sensible person would bring up a moose at a moment like this I didn’t know. But in this part of the world, when you utter the sounds describing a giant sighing four-legged forest creature, they tickle a part of a Turkish bus driver’s brain that makes him pull over.

Similarly, I have found that after a market vendor quotes me a price for something, if I exclaim, “Choke pa hala!” I can get the item for about 20 percent less than if I hadn’t mentioned choking someone. I’ll choke anyone for that kind of savings!

Yes, the right sounds clumped into the right patterns have power. Last week, I was talking with a friend in Turkish about God’s true remnant through the line of Adam to Noah and from Abraham to Jesus. “Barnabas, you’re finally making sense!” My friend exclaimed. That was his polite way of saying, “For the last three years, Barnabas, you have been nonsensical.”

I about fell over this week when the same friend announced to me over the phone, “Barnabas, I will be at your church this Saturday with my wife and children.”

I was thrilled. “What made my friend decide to come?” I pondered. Three years of friendship helps, but words played an undeniable role. New words I learned sitting by myself studying. Simple sounds—gummy vowels and crunchy consonants—clustered together and served in such a way that they sparked his appetite and opened a door for the Holy Spirit.

“In the beginning was the Word.” I understand this statement better now than ever before. Jesus is the right Word. He is the Word that the whole universe understands. When Jesus speaks, the universe listens. All nature—every cell, every plant, every animal, every angel, every atom, every galaxy—understands and hops to. When He speaks, stuff happens. The judgment is simply the weeding out of those who don’t hear His voice because His language is foreign to them.

I believe all the forces of evil stand opposed to the kingdom of Christ entering Turkey. I want to see stuff happen here—big kingdom stuff. Only words, rightly spoken, have the power to make that kind of stuff happen. Satan despises every new Turkish word I learn, because he knows every one gives me more and more power. With God’s help, I am growing powerful to effect change in lives. Powerful to turn heads, to make people ponder. Every verb I drink, every noun I eat, every word I learn is broadening my base of power. I am a child of the Living Word, and He is making me a force in this country.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

—Martin Luther

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