The day started like every other day. Half the team was working on Chave’s house and half were going to a neighborhood to do water filter ministry. I was on the water filter team and we were going to do water filter follow-ups. At that point we’d only handed out filters, but this time we were going to talk to people who’ve had the filters for a few months. I was excited to be able to do the follow-ups and to see how they’ve impacted people’s lives. In essence, we were going to see some fruit from our labor.
We arrived at Juan Bosch, a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city of La Vega. The houses were made of wood, contained dirt floors and tin roofs, but had no bathrooms or running water. It was surrounded by vegetation and sat at the foothills of a small mountain. There was only one water spigot for the whole village to use. This neighborhood was by far the poorest neighborhood we’d been to.
We sat down with families that had filters and asked some basic questions about their health, the functionality of the filters and we prayed with them. I remember feeling disappointed in our experiences. Don’t get me wrong, the people were thankful for the filters and answered our questions without hesitation, but it felt stiff and awkward.
We approached a home that didn’t have a water filter yet. There was an elderly man, Tato, sitting in a chair looking out the front door with a five gallon bucket at his feet. I remember thinking, “great, this family is greeting us and has the bucket ready!” I realized as we are entering the home that that bucket wasn’t for us to use for the water filter presentation, but instead for Tato to cough and spit up bodily fluids.
It was my turn to do the water filter presentation and I knew that this presentation was going to be hard. I started showing Tato’s wife, Georgina, how to set up the water filter and I’m interrupted by her son who is in his late 20s/early 30s. He came in through the back, turned up his music really loud and was intentionally interrupting us and being a distraction.
We continued with the presentation and I was getting more and more emotionally upset. The son was acting very strange and Tato kept coughing and throwing up. He looked so down and defeated. I got to the evangelizing part of the presentation and the older son became even more of a distraction by shouting out things and turning his music up louder. When we asked Georgina how we could specifically pray for her and her family we found out that her son was mentally unstable and was difficult to live with. She was also taking care of her sickly husband, who she could barely lift out of bed and into his chair on a daily basis. She was handling a lot and overwhelmed.
I could just feel the overwhelming frustration from Georgina, the heaviness of the son and Tato’s feeling of being a burden. I was trying to keep it emotionally together, so I asked Caroline to pray for the family because I didn’t want to break down and cry in front of this family or my team. Caroline prayed over the family and despite all my effort, I started to cry for them and in front of them.
My heart was breaking for them and instead of letting them see that I cared and empathized with them, I tried to hide the fact that I was crying (It was a miserable attempt because my eyes and face turn bright red when I cry). I wanted to bolt out of the house and regain composure, but we stayed there for a long time speaking with them and praying over them, while tears were running down my face. It was hard because I felt like I was the weak one of the group and I wanted to be strong for this family.
This month God has been teaching me that it is ok to be emotional, sensitive and vulnerable in front of people. I’m so used to bottling everything up and trying to hide how I truly feel. I want to be strong and look like I have everything under control. I’ve always seen my sensitivity as a weakness, but God is teaching me that being empathetic and sympathetic isn’t a weakness, but a blessing. I’m able to show people how much I care for them without needing to use words, which is huge in situations where I can’t say what I want to express in Spanish or when I’m at a loss of words. Since I am sensitive, God has given me the ability to sense when others are upset and I‘m able to be a sympathetic ear and be there for them.
