Music is a Language
By Ryan Chen, Plano, Texas

I recently went on a missions trip to South Africa. I spent a week in a small township outside of Johannesburg called Adderidgeville. In this week, God spoke in me, to me, and through me in many ways. One of them being music.

There were many moments during the week that I was there where I felt God communicating through the language barrier. Grant it, mostly everyone spoke English in the area I was in; however, there was also a vast majority who not only couldn't speak English, but had a very stereotyped image of Americans and foreigners in general. When we walked through the streets as a team, you could feel that you didn't belong. In South Africa, it is not as horrible as the media puts it though. I remember entering the country with a sense of fear like every privilaged person would feel entering a third-world country. Yet, God gave me peace and grace, constantly reminding me of Romans 8:31: "If God is for us, who can ever be against us?"

During the middle of the week, we had a worship service in the place we stayed, called Alabanza. There, a lady named Wapi came to share with us about her life and what God has done in her and through her. She told us of her past in Zambia and how she was constantly angry and afflicted with rage. But through God, her heart felt peace. Wapi was a lady that you would never imagine to have so much hatred in her. Yet she spoke of her past with such anguish, you knew that it caused her grief to even talk about it. After she finished sharing her testimony, she asked us if we could just sing a song.

She began singing: "Ahona ya tchwanang le Jeso, Ahona ya tchwanang naye..."

Now, I am a big fan of worship music. I lead worship back at my church and I am also an advent listener to all things praising God. I always imagined worship with soaring vocals, echoing guitars, and a good bass line. Never acapella. Never just a single voice. Her voice echoed in the room as she sang. None of our group knew what she was singing, but there were about four other fellow South Africans who were part of our staff in South African who started to sing as passionately as they could. I started to think of what they were singing. Maybe a bible verse? Maybe some beautifully crafted lyrics? Maybe nothing at all?

Wapi sang this line for about 6 times, and our group started catching on to this different language. We began feeling the emotion in these meaningless words.

But then she sang the line in English: "There's no one, there's no one like Jesus, There's no one, There's no one like Him..."

And then I understood. Such simple words could mean so much. Sometimes we don't need fancy words to express how much our love for God is. And I believe that not only music transcends all language barriers, but so does God.

One of my translators from my missions trip to Mexico asked me how many languages could I speak. I told him: "Two. English and Chinese...barely."
He looked at me again and said: "I heard your playing guitar and singing earlier. Now that's three languages."

 

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