Every week Ilse’s mom (“Mama Gilma” to us) visits a group of kids who live in Santa Lucia. She teaches them Bible stories, sings songs with them and showers them with the love that they often don’t receive from their parents. This week was our 2nd and final trip to see the kids.
The ride to Santa Lucia is an adventure in itself. Guatemala’s most common form of transportation is “chicken buses.” Chicken buses are old school buses that have been painted bright colors (sometimes even with flames), come equipped with a crazy driver and if you’re lucky a TV that plays Guatemalan music videos on loop. It is customary to cram three people per seat, and you can almost always bet that the bus will be filled to maximum capacity. Personal space does not exist on chicken buses, especially on the ride to Santa Lucia. If we didn’t already get enough stares just for being the only group of “Gringos” on the bus, we decided to add to the looks by trying the “no hands” game as the driver lurches around 90 degree turns. Even when holding on with both hands, it’s impossible to not smash into the person next to you. Needless to say, we always climb off the bus with stories of who we sat on or who sat on us during the ride.
As we got off the bus and walked down the street where the kids live, we could hear screams of excitement and see the kids running from all different directions to meet us at the bottom of the hill. We were immediately greeted with hugs, high fives and ear-to-ear smiles. At Mama Gilma’s instruction they grabbed our hands and we headed towards the park. They couldn’t care less about how much Spanish we know, they are simply happy to have hands to hold and arms to hug them and we are more than willing to give both. Before we left Antigua our team was struggling from lack of sleep, but all the exhaustion faded when we saw their joy. Their smiles are contagious and you could not have paid any of us to miss out on the chance to love on them.
At the park, Mama Gilma led a few songs in Spanish and then the Kaleo entertainment act began as we stumbled through a few Bible songs from our childhoods. They loved it and kept chanting for more so the guys decided to tell a story. Thomas and Mickey did their best rendition of Noah’s Ark (with Mama Gilma translating the North Carolina and Wisconsin accents as best she could). When it came time for the animals to board the Ark we females transformed into elephants, tigers, snakes, monkeys and birds, grabbing the kids and getting them to mimic us as we marched onto the “Ark.” After some initial hesitation to join in our craziness, we soon had more than enough animals to meet Noah’s quota.
After the story we moved to the basketball court to play soccer. Girls vs. Guys of course. After an hour of swinging the kids around until we were all dizzy, kicking around their plastic ball and taking a million pictures as they kept yelling “photo, photo,” it was time to head back to their street. We were as sad to leave them as they were to see us go. Despite our physical exhaustion, they brought our team a joy and peace that we
desperately needed.
Matthew 18:3-5 “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
