One day last week, our team was hanging out at our host family’s home, spending the later afternoon in conversation amongst each other before church service began at 7pm. Tara and Josh were conversing with some of the local kids in the small gravel yard in front of the house, when a man by the name of Miguel, slowly walked up to them with his head and shoulders slumped over and his feet dragging behind. He wore an old, button-up shirt and dirt stained pants. His skin was blackened by the sun and days of dirt covered his hands and face.Before Tara and Josh could even get out a “Hello”, he plopped down in the gravel drive that sat at the feet of both of them, with a harsh fall onto his rear and his knees bent to prop up his heavy arms. Like a kid would at story time, the man looked up at them from below….waiting. His sad face proposed the unspoken question – “Can you help me?” His drunken slurs, a cross between Spanish and Ch’ol, put Tara and Josh into a state of helplessness. They looked at eachother – “What do we do?”
The kids around were chuckling at him, pointing and covering their smiles as they looked at Tara and Josh for confirmation that it was ok to laugh. But, it wasn’t – they quickly silenced the children and brought their focus back to Miguel.
At this point, I had just walked outside to see the group huddled around the new spectacle. As Josh begins to communicate to him, Tara turns back at me to say, “This is a great opportunity, come out here!” I could tell they were struggling to understand his Spanish, so I ran inside to grab my Spanish dictionary.
Our only translator, Johnny, was busy preparing the night’s lesson inside. So, the three of us, with the dictionary at our aid, attempted to carry on a conversation – starting with questions to uncover his most dire need at that time. We couldn’t make out a single word. His mouth looked dry, so I brought him water. It was gone in a second; then some more water and a piece of bread. Then more bread. “No mas” he said eventually with his mouth full of bread.
In the back of the dictionary, there is an evangelism outline that explains eternal life through Christ, in English and in Spanish. Without going into much detail, we used it to explain God, the Father, in Spanish. With a couple seconds of contemplation, he looked up at us and began to cry. Miguel explains, “No madre o padre” with more broken Spanish to follow. With tears falling off his chin, he desperately poured out his sorrow that his Mother and Father were gone; that they left him when he was just a child.
How sad this was, to see such a broken man lost in a world without anyone to love or to love him in return. Miguel was the town drunk; the outcast of a small village in the middle of nowhere. His family left him, no one dares to be his friend and he has no place to go, nowhere to call home. His sadness is covered by a constant drunken blur.
We go onto explain that God, “Dios”, is his father. He has a father who loves him. A father who will never leave him, that he is right here with him now… Waiting to be called on by his child. I point up towards the sky – “Dios” then to his heart “Dios te ama.” God loves you – as I look into his eyes and he looks into mine. My heart breaks. I can only pray that he understands.
