“Yay!!! They’re here!” I exclaim as Maria, Daisy (her sister n law), Silvia, and Grace enter the ministry site where our Team Stained Glass lives for the month of January. All month, we have been looking forward to having a ladies’ night to serve and love on the women who had been serving us all month long. Finally, they’re here! The girls start talking to them as Danielle and I start filling up our small clothes washing tubs with water and setting the tubs in front of three chairs.
“Let’s serve them tonight,” we all agree as we planned this special ladies’ night.
“Maria has never been to a sleep over,” Joel told us as we were talking about what we wanted to do.
“Really? How is that possible?” I asked him. Coming from a culture where sleepovers are the norm for all little girls of pretty much every age, this was completely foreign to me.
“It is not something they do in Peru. It’s not safe for them to have sleepovers, so Maria’s mother would never let her stay over at a friend’s house,” Joel replied.
Mind blown. My world was rocked. In 31 years, Maria had never had the chance to sleep over at a friend’s house. “Wow, well we will have to give her the chance to have this one sleepover!” So… we began to plan. Movies. Nail Polish. Games. Worship. Prayer. Snacks. We have to do it all! This has to be a night for them to remember!
They all look questioningly at Danielle and I as we walk by them with the tubs of water.
“We want to serve you. You all have done so much for us this month and we want to take this night to tell you thank you and to serve you. We want to wash your feet to show you how much Jesus loves you and to follow Him in this example He set,” I explain to them as Melissa translates in Spanish for them all. First, we start out with prayer and worship together. We sing songs in English and Spanish and just sit like little girls in the Father’s presence.
Then, we wash their feet. “Lord, I lift Silvia up to you,” we pray for each of these beautiful women as we wash their feet. Tears stream down their faces as they accept a love that knows no language barrier. We need to dry their feet. I think to myself. There were no rags or towels anywhere near us. It was hard enough to find something to dry your hands with in the bathroom. My towel. That will work. God had a hidden lesson in humility for me. I wouldn’t get a chance to wash my towel for another few days. After this experience, I understood a little better the woman who washed Jesus feet with her hair.
Afterwards, we all went up to our room with 20 bunks for a movie, games, and snacks. “Ahhhhh!” we all screamed as Julia, Jordyn, Melissa and I fell through the center bed breaking the wooden pieces holding up all of the slats. R.I.P. to Cali’s poor bed. We had gathered around to watch a movie, but quickly learned we exceeded the maximum weight for that particular bed. “Ok, from now on, the limit is 2 people per bed!” We all agreed as we laughed hysterically because somehow in the process of the bed crashing, Julia smashed some chips into Jordyn’s face.
And we digressed and tried to watch a movie…that wouldn’t work. No movie. Ok, that’s alright.
“Let’s play charades with animals!” Silvia suggested. The rules were that each team would have one person from the other team give them an animal to act out. They would get points for every animal they got right in a one-minute time frame. Sounds easy, right? Well, if there is someone on the other team that gives you an animal in a language you don’t speak, you still have to act out that animal! You have to fly, crawl, or slither until you get the animal right! This made for a VERY interesting game of charades to say the least. We had English speakers saying English animals to Spanish speakers and vise versa. We had a blast.
When it was bed time, I realized that we needed to find something for them to sleep on or in. There are mattresses, but they are covered in plastic and there are no sheets or pillows on them, so we got creative. We spread out our sleeping bags, pillows, and liners until everyone had something. We sprayed them all with bug spray before going to bed, and then we went to sleep.
I really don’t need as much as I think I do. That mattress was just fine without all of the extra things to make me comfortable. Sacrificing something simple for someone else is really not a sacrifice at all. Those ladies blessed me more that night than they will ever know.
It was definitely A Night to Remember. Love Knows NO Bounds, language barriers or otherwise.
