What language do you speak?

In the last few years much has been said about the importance of the "Navajo Code Talkers" whose ability to speak a language no one else in the world could understand was so profitable to the allied effort during WWII. They created a code that the Germans and Japanese were never able to break. There contribution to the war was invaluable. By the same token, very little has been said about the role that Louisiana French speakers played in the French Resistance during that time. It is said that the Germans could quickly identify a Canadian French accent and by that many spies were caught. The Louisiana French that we commonly call Cajun today is very close to the common language of Northern France. With a few lessons  Cajun French speakers were able to pass themselves off as French peasants when in fact they were spies. There effort to the war can not be overstated.

Bernie LeJeune was sent to Camp Shelby, Mississppi in 1941 to prepare for service overseas. In the initial interview he was asked if he spoke a second language. He replied that he spoke French. The interviewer looked at his paperwork, saw that he was from Louisiana, and brushed it aside. Your dialect of French, he was told, will not be of any use to the military. LeJeune was stationed in Casablanca. There the French and American bureaucracy  had locked horns. One night LaJeune overhead some officers from the French army in a heated discussion. He walked up and asked what the problem was. They replied that the absence of a capable interpreter was causing all the problems. LaJeune had a new job and the problem was solved. So much for his French being of no use to the U.S. military.

Is there someone in our lives whose importance we have underestimated? Perhaps they are not just like us. They may seem to be causing problems on the job, in church, or in our circle of friends. It could be that we just have not yet discovered what that person is good at. We are all guilty of being a little impatient with others at times. Perhaps we need to spend a little more time getting to know that person before we write him off. It may be that he is the answer to a problem we have been praying about for a long time.

All of us are created in the image of God and so all of us have worth. May God help us to see each individual he places in our lives as a gift from him.

Thoughtfully Yours,

Sullivan Jones