Antigua Guatemala.
I love it here. A romantic city with cobble stone streets, grass growing on the aging terra cotta shingle roofs; brilliant buildings with bold colors line the streets. Red, blue, orange, yellow – each store is a brighter color. This city has a European style that is hard not to love. The quaint cafés are comfortable. Volcanoes and rolling green mountains surround the city. The sights and sounds are lovely and fun to take in. Yet….The poverty here doesn’t demand attention and apparently it is easy to miss – if you choose not to look.
Yesterday, (our first day here) as us world racers were getting acquainted and falling in love with the beauty of Antiqua, I stepped out of myself for a moment and saw the American and European tourists. I saw them looking for more treasures to cram in their suitcases that will most likely go on a forgotten shelf and collect dust. I look down to the sidewalk. There, sitting on the concrete I saw the local homeless Guatemalans sitting alone, maybe with children. They are wearing tattered but beautiful traditional clothing, The women have long ropes of hair gathered in braids that fall down to their hips. As they sit they look so very alone, gripping their dirty children to their chests.
As I shift my gaze up to all the tourists I noticed something horrifically wrong. They go from store to store buying tee-shirts and snapping pictures…..all the while ignoring the people that sit on the pavement day in and day out with no where to go. Why? Why did I find myself in this position?
Poverty is uncomfortable, and it is easy to ignore.
Yesterday I found myself having a tourist mindset, (as we are here to debreif and just process this last month.) But, I am not a tourist. I am a missionary. I have no money to spend anyway, automatically disqualifying me from the tourist label. Though I cannot speak the language, I can prove that I care, and I can look into their eyes and ask them their name.
Yesterday, a woman named Manuela sat alone. She looked about 90 years old. She is very small, and looks so alone that once you look at her, it is unconceivable how people could miss her. Wrapped in a filthy pink sweater, arms folded clutching her sides, determined not to look up, most likely fearing to see all the rich people that walk by her. I am sure she feels invisible. I thought, “if Jesus were here, he would run to her, and embrace her with a hug she has never felt. He would place his hands on her head and heal her throbbing headaches and restore her health, her hacking cough would be no more. He would ask her to dance.
The Lord placed his supernatural love for her in my heart. At that moment, I marched across the street, past the tourists and sat down next to her and looked into her foggy gray eyes. After a few moments of speaking with her and praying with her, I knew I needed more people to pray with me. I gathered 5 other World Racers. We kneeled around her on the sidewalk, and prayed with her.
One of the World Racers who was watching our backs while we prayed told us later, that as we were praying for Manuela, tourists and locals alike stopped in their tracks, dropped their jaws, in disbelief.
I hope that while God was meeting with Manuela through us he was meeting with others on a bustling Guatemalan street, who would have never seen this old women before.
I hope they saw what they didn’t see before.
I hope they see taking a risk that feels uncomfortable is just what the Lord asks of all of us.
As Jesus said:
“…..Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me-you did it to me.”
Matthew 25:40 The Message
