Indigent tongues are something I've dealt with for most of my life. First Spanish, then Portugueses, then a host of dialects throughout Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru, perhaps 200 in all. From Amarakaeri to Tzeltal, the myriad of ways people could use sounds made by their mouths astounded me.

My father in law was even more impacted by foreign tongues and before I met his daughter, he had set up shop in a Campa village to learn the local speech, even to the point of being featured in a book published by Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Perhaps his personal life points to the most important experience when he was called on to preach to a group of peasants and farmers by another missionary. Eddy was a bit on the grubby side, having spend half the day helping carve out an airstrip and now looked more like a sharecropper than a linguest, onlyl his glasses giving a hint that he might be something other than a local grubber.

He muttered a prayer and opened his Bible to the book of John. When he opened his mouth, he began to preach....in Spanish, to these Spanish speakers grouped in front of him on stumps and primitive benches. For 20 minutes he delivered the story of the Gospel with fluidity, winding up the sermon by a closing prayer.

He knew something strange had happened to him afterwards, since he'd never been able to speak Spanish more than halting words to get a meal, or buy gasoline. He'd been loosed by the Holy Spirit to speak in a language in front of smudge faced men, women and children to render the Gospel to each in a direct miracle of communication.

The miracle of tongues in his mouth never happened again, but he knew that God had touched him as long as he was doing God's work. He believed from that time forward that the gift of tongues was part of the Lord's channel through us to reach the world for Christ.

There are still more than 1800 languages without a single word written, which God continues to call people to translate HIS speech into their tongues!