"Gloria," she said; "Gloria de Dios!"
That was the response of the woman sitting in the back pew at the cathedral in downtown San Salvador when we asked her what her name was.
To be honest, when we split up into groups to spread out all over downtown and pray with people, I was pretty nervous about it. In my group of three I was that only one with much Spanish experience, which meant that I would be responsible for doing the talking.
"What if I misunderstand them? What if they don't understand me? I can't do this!!" These were all of the things that were running, over and over again in my head. But it didn't matter what was running through my head; Jake, Carrie, and myself were on our way and determined to do something!
After wandering around for a minute or two with no direction, or no real clue what to do; we decided to stop and just ask the Lord to guide us to the people He is already moving and stirring in. After that we decided that the Cathedral was the place to be; and so we crossed the street and entered.
We walked around the entire building, not really knowing what to do, when finally Carrie said, "What about the lady that was sitting in the back and eating her lunch?" After a quick discussion and a few really deep breaths to calm the nerves we made our way to her.
I asked her how she was doing and immediately she said, "asi asi." Which is like saying, ehhh. After a little prompting she finally told us that she was really sad because her dad had just passed away, and her heart was hurting because of it. She loved her dad, and after 86 years of life he finally left this place to move onto the next. Her heart was broken, and I could see it all over her face; in fact, her eyes were screaming it at me! All I wanted to do was make her feel better, I just didn't know how to do that for her.
And so we prayed. I prayed for her, that God would comfort her and love on her as she is going through this rough time. I prayed that God would make His presence so known to her that it is undeniable.
After we finished praying she just kept talking. She showed us a plaque with his picture and a prayer for him. She just wanted to tell us about her dad, and so we listened, not understanding everything, we just listened. At one point she stopped and I shared with her that my dad had passed away three years ago, and I understand how hard it is to go through this; but at the end of the day, God is so good and I told her that He would take care of her and her hurt, she just needs to trust in Him.
Our conversation came to a close, and I gave her a squeeze around the neck for a minute before we went our separate ways.
At the beginning of the conversation I was so nervous about having to converse with somebody, all on my own, in Spanish; but that problem was such an insignificant thing to worry about. I'm so glad that I decided to step up to the challenge and talk with Gloria; who knows, perhaps she was the person that we went there for!
