This past week, week two of ministry in Costa Rica, my squad had the privilege of doing evangelism in the beach town a few miles down the road. Wednesday, after a morning full of conversations and laughter, we found ourselves talking to the roadside jewelry vendors, with their stands set up in prime position to catch the attention of tourists.
I, along with my teammate Anahi, and Kenz, one of our squad leaders, started talking to one particularly friendly vendor named Carlos. using our broken Spanish to respond to his broken English, we learned that he had been selling jewelry for years, and every piece that sits on his table is made by him, with skillful intention.
We started looking through his pieces of jewelry, everything from earrings crafted with seaglass and wire, bracelets woven together with small beads and colorful string, to short choker necklaces strung with perfectly round shells and long necklaces held together by beautiful knots.
As we looked, we introduced ourselves and continued to listen to him share about his life. He told stories of adventure and thrill as he traveled around the world with different friends, stories of pain and heartbreak as he shared about the death of his lovely wife, stories of intelligence as he eagerly spoke in not one, not two, but five different languages, and stories of hope and joy as he thought about seeing his two sons in the capitol city.
Since Wednesday, we’ve been back every afternoon, and Carlos has begun teaching us how to make the jewelry that he so beautifully creates. He’s taught us how to make bracelets with adjustable sizes, earrings with fancy wiring, and rings creatively wound into animal shapes. of course, the jewelry I create is nothing as complicated or intricate as Carlos’ years of experience. And one may look at that as a waste of materials, after all, I’m using his string, his beads, his clips, and his shells, to create something he won’t be able to sell. Being honest, that’s how I thought of it too – a fun activity, but still not a practical use of his materials.
In attempt to respect him and out of an effort to keep him from feeling like he wasted his resources on us, we asked how much we could pay for the jewelry we had made that day, before walking away with new bracelets and rings. He replied by telling us that we didn’t need to pay, and when we insisted he said, “no, not everything is about money. Some things you do for your friends.”
“For your friends.” The man we had met just one day before, had just considered us friend enough to not charge us for what we clearly owe. Sounds a lot like what Jesus does for us 🙂
So I encourage you, reach out to the ‘Carlos’ in your town. Maybe the Carlos you know isn’t a beachside vendor, but maybe the barista at your favorite local coffee shop, the cashier you see on your weekly grocery run, the man you sit next to in the waiting room each month, or maybe it’s the person who you see across the lunchroom every day. Reach out to the Carlos you know, because Jesus has reached out to us, loved us, and freely given us what we owed.
