Thirty multicultural women in a hotel. A real hotel with separate rooms and the kind of breakfast you can live on all day.

Once a year, we organize a multicultural women’s weekend. Men and children are not allowed. When it comes to planning, the ladies really let loose. “We’re going to Spain!” one of them exclaims. “We’re staying for a week!”

In the end, it’s just one night from Friday to Saturday, in the Netherlands. After all, it has to remain affordable. But the ladies enjoy themselves. Taking photos by the Christmas tree, swimming in the pool, and eating out together in the evening.

 “Esther, you’re a pastor, this is all very earthly,” I admonished myself once I was lying in my hotel bed that night. And so, early the next morning, I posted in the app group: “If you want to read the Bible and pray together, you can come to my room in an hour, and we’ll have a time together before breakfast.”

Would anyone come? Three Myanmarese women sneaked in and sat quietly on the extra bed. Two Chinese women took the two chairs from the seating area. The two ladies from Ecuador squeezed themselves onto the luggage rack. An Iranian woman joined us and settled down on the double bed against the wall. It went on like this until we were about fifteen women together on and around and next to the hotel bed.

I looked around. It was a special congregation, gathered in a strange place. Some were deeply religious, others had only just begun their journey, or were not even there yet.

We read a passage from the Bible. First aloud in Dutch, then in Karen, Spanish, and Chinese. “I love the Lord, He hears my voice, my pleas.”

We shared the things that were troubling us. In the safety of the hotel room, before God, without the men present, we could express what was vulnerable and hidden deep in our hearts.

“Anyone who wants to can pray,” I said. I didn’t understand it all, but I could comprehend it. Myanmarese hearts were poured out and Chinese tears were wiped away. Iranian surrender resounded and Ecuadorian passion was unmistakable. Above all, it felt as if the room was a place where God Himself was present through His Holy Spirit in all the different languages.

I ended the prayer. I said a blessing. I was thankful to Godor all his different children. And glad that I had sent that message to the app group after all.