It’s been one month since I moved to Guatemala and it will be eight more months until I step back on US soil, eight more months until I see my family again.
I stand in front of a classroom as foreign faces yell back at me “Gringa!” I am immediately overwhelmed with unfamiliarity.
This language is not my own,
this culture seems to belong to everyone but me,
heck, the sun even burns my skin with more intensity.
The village we enter is landmarked with houses of tin and floors of dirt. Dogs line the streets with eyes of hunger as if it is their last day on earth – and maybe it is. I begin to wonder what impact could we possibly have on a place like this, when a woman opens her home to us, welcomes us in, and invites us to toss tortillas with her. She informs us that her husband had been killed for a debt he had owed so she had to start a tortilla business from home to take care of the family. We began to pray strength and prosperity over her home and her family, but it was there, under tin roof and above dirt floor, that we wept in sorrow and joy.
Amidst all the newness, all the unfamiliarity – I began to realize it is the moment you go a little deeper, stay a little longer that you begin to see the joy in the children’s faces when they see you return as a friend instead of a tourist, the hope restored in families when you follow up on the promise you made to return, and the friendships you make at the breaking of bread and meal times. Even when you don’t speak the same language you are able to communicate with love. Suddenly, my eyes were opened to see the beauty instead of the ashes, the hope instead of the hopelessness, the gratitude instead of pity.
The Lord has graciously opened my eyes to see the string that connects all cultures, that seizes all hearts, and reconciles all people – community.
It’s been one month since I moved to Guatemala and
only eight more months until I step back on US soil,
only eight more months until I see my family again.
I have been crushed in the aftermath of landing on foreign soil, but have been reborn to see the familiarity in an unfamiliar place – the call on the hearts of all people – to know and to be known.
Guatemala, I see you.
