For one of our adventure days, my team went to the beach in Tela and stayed overnight. Our first day there, we went to the beach and there we saw some beach chairs. We sat down, and this guy came over and said we had to pay for them. He advised us to ask our hotel if they had any chairs we could use.
His name was Cruz.
I didn’t think anything of him honestly, and I didn’t see us talking to him again, at least not me. While we were laying on the beach, he came up to one of my teammates and talked to her for quite a while. He told her some of his story, which she shared with us. Cruz is a Honduran and Brazilian. He travels frequently, staying in one place to make money, and then moving to another place. He makes jewelry and sells it, along with other items.
I didn’t have another interaction with him, until lunch time. We had just left the beach to go find somewhere to eat lunch. He ran up to us and told us he knew a place that had great food and was affordable. So, off we went. He didn’t just take us there. He went inside, explained the menu, helped us order, and then sat with us while we ate. This was the first time I was able to really talk with him. I found out he has three kids (four???), and one of them lives in Honduras (I believe), but the others live in Mexico. Again, I didn’t really anticipate another interaction after that one.
But, he came up and talked to us again that afternoon. One of my teammates asked him about his beliefs about God and Jesus. We talked with him for quite a while about that, and we found out he is a Christian, but he isn’t involved in church. By this point, I stopped thinking we wouldn’t talk any more with him…in fact, I hoped we would be able to the following day. It all depended on the rain.
Thankfully, the rain held off, and we got an awesome surprise when Cruz showed up with a drum. This was the day I learned how to play the jimbe (I would use the word “learned” fairly loosely). He was patient in teaching me how to play different beats, along with some of my other teammates. We ended up having a spontaneous worship session there on the beach, which was awesome! Later that afternoon, he surprised us with sweet bread, and showed us some of the jewelry that he makes. We spent a good portion of the afternoon talking with him, until we had to leave to go back to Choloma.
I learned a lot about giving from Cruz in those two days in Tela. I had never met a perfect stranger who was so willing to give without asking anything in return, especially in Central America. I didn’t find it ironic at all that His name means “cross”, because his giving was a great representation of the life Jesus lived on earth and the fact that He gave His life for us on the cross.
“For God so loved that He gave…Is there any word more powerful than giving? ThanksGIVING. ForGIVING. Care-GIVING. Life-GIVING. Everything that matters in living comes down to giving.” -The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp
