This Sunday we went to church in a village about an hour away from Palenque, Mexico. The pastor invited us to come join them for a celebration…I’m not sure what we were celebrating, but I’m always up for a party.
We arrived and there were a lot of people, some from the church and some were most likely people from the village that weren’t used to seeing van loads of Americans. I saw lots of friendly faces and wanted to go meet people so approached some women standing off to the side. When I went to speak with them, I spoke my usual broken Spanish and instead of hearing responses, I saw them looking at each other quizzically and realized they had no idea what I was saying. I hit my first cultural road block. These women spoke a different language, a Mayan… It forced me to take a step back and think about how to show these people I loved them without words. It also helped me to empathize with my teammates that don’t speak Spanish.
I felt the tension of needing to “do” something. I silently talked to the Lord about what I was feeling and learned a quick lesson that it’s ok to step back. Saying a lot of words to someone doesn’t necessarily let them know that they are valuable. I decided to relax and just “be” and opportunities presented themselves…mainly through a camera.
I saw that some children were getting their picture taken and were very excited about it, so I decided to pull mine out. Somehow, the camera got out of my hands and the children started taking pictures. Here´s a picture of some of them (actually I can´t get it to upload, so I´ll put it in later).
It was great. I loved seeing their smiles and excitement over seeing themselves on the camera.
There was a brief interlude where we got to eat some great beef and rice. They actually killed a cow specifically for our celebration together! After that we played hand games and Stephanie (another World Racer) and I got to teach the kids the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” in Spanish. They loved it!
I got to love and be loved through smiles, pictures, songs, and games. It was a great day.
