Found in Translation (34 page)

Some of the people I’d known from other denominations didn’t seem to be Christians. The evidence just wasn’t there. They were more gossipy, more selfish, more unloving, and less forgiving than many people who don’t even profess Jesus as Lord.

That seemed to be true of some of the teens in my youth group, too—including kids who’d made public professions of faith and been baptized. I planned to give them some personal attention when I got home.

What a gap between churchgoers and real Christians.

Rosa was a great mom, a hard worker, and as good a friend as she could be, considering our inability to communicate verbally. But those things didn’t make her a Christian. I’d grown increasingly concerned about her probable need for salvation and prayed for her many times daily. Although this reading of Lucas would surely touch her in some way, would it be enough?

I was less concerned about Anjelita—at least for now. I’d always been taught that children under a certain age would go to heaven if they died. If that was true and she died tonight, she would awaken in Jesus’ arms. After the first ten million years of warming in His love and acceptance, she might take her eyes off His face long enough to glance down and find her arm whole—perhaps for the first time ever.

But I had another reason for being less concerned about Anjelita.

Rosa was a super mom. Anjelita adored her and tried to be just like her. If Rosa became a believer, she would undoubtedly try to win Anjelita, too. Anjelita’s decision would be her own, though. She was too independent to do something that important just to please Rosa.

That didn’t answer the main question, though. If Rosa was not a Christian already, would she become one? Although she’d heard parts of Lucas and served as the best of my tutors, I was skeptical about finishing in the time I had left.

Even if I completed Lucas, Anjelita would be the only villager who’d heard it all the way through. No matter how intelligent she was, I couldn’t imagine her being able to fill the villagers in on everything they’d missed.

If I didn’t finish—if the villagers didn’t get to hear about the joyous Easter resurrection and the ascension—what would Luke’s Gospel accomplish?

Lord, please help me finish.

I would go as fast as my tutors allowed, of course, but I had to cover more material than I had during the first day and a half. The solution was simple. I’d started earlier and stayed later at the House of Bread to get more done.

I would do the same thing here.

Day 12

G
od solved that problem in an even better way than I’d hoped. After another good night of sleep, I experienced a major breakthrough. Although my tutors couldn’t teach me the rules of pronunciation, my God-given flair for languages helped me discern, formulate, and apply my own rules, and they turned out to be remarkably accurate. My weak flicker raged almost instantly into an unstoppable fire.

The villagers corrected me only when they couldn’t understand me. That didn’t happen often now.

Now that my reading wasn’t constant stop-and-start, the villagers—entranced by Luke’s story of Jesus—seemed reluctant to return to work. Judging by the timing of their coming and going, they purposely waited for logical breaks in the narrative before leaving. Even then, they tended to back away as if trying to catch a few words of the next section before they got out of earshot.

At lunchtime that day, Aleesha pointed out something I hadn’t noticed. An ever-widening circle of villagers had been gathering just outside my peripheral vision and listening intently for longer and longer periods. That news perked me up.

Some of my little congregation remained outside for hours at a time, either forgetting to go inside the Passover Church for water or perhaps fearing they’d miss hearing something important in the few seconds they would need to get snacks and water. So I asked Rob and Charlie to set some water outside. It wouldn’t sit in the sun long enough to superheat.

Whenever new listeners showed up, I heard whispering, but it was very quiet. They apparently wanted to learn what I was reading about at the moment. I never heard talking at any other time.

Their level of interest remained amazingly high, yet I fought a constant battle against frustration. God’s Word wouldn’t return to Him void. I believed that. My reading—no, not that, but the Word itself—would have a positive effect. But would I ever know the outcome?

If I was honest with myself, I didn’t want God’s Word to return to me void, either. Even though I couldn’t imagine Him working any miracles through me, I daydreamed about every villager becoming a Christian. And then I fretted about who would disciple them.

“Guys and girls,” Charlie said to the team during supper that night, “God is doing something special through Kim’s Bible reading. Be patient about the length and frequency of the villagers’ breaks.”

“No problem about that, Charlie.” Judging by the nods of affirmation, Geoff spoke for everyone. “Listening to God’s Word is the most important thing the villagers can do now. We need to keep Kimmy’s project in our constant prayers.” He concluded by setting a powerful example, and a fervent group prayer time followed.

The old “Hi, Kimmy. How’s the arm?” greeting went into immediate disuse. Team members now asked, “What specific things should we pray about tonight?”

So I wasn’t surprised to see dozens of teens sitting outside the mess tent or in the churchyard that night. Some were reading their Bibles in preparation for prayer, while others already had their eyes closed. They were serious about their commitment to pray.

Although each team member had a slightly different take on my reading, they agreed that God had brought me to Santa María as a seed sower. A number of them pointed out that the planter doesn’t always participate in the harvest. How often had I heard that in sermons and Bible studies without appreciating its significance?

A seed sower? I know that’s important, Lord. Someone must do it. Otherwise, there’ll be no harvest. But can’t I at least see Rosa come to You?

Day 13

N
ow that the litter cleanup was days in the past and progress in the reading of Lucas was good—I would easily finish today and perhaps read some other scripture after that—I began thinking about the changes I’d witnessed. Especially in myself.

I was no longer the spoiled young lady who’d left her safe, comfortable home in Georgia with a bunch of good intentions and too much luggage and ended up in the wilds of Santa María. I had discovered the hard way that I needed to align my plans with God’s rather than expect Him to rubber-stamp mine.

I wasn’t my usual carefree self anymore, either. No, not my “usual carefree self,” but my “usual care-only-for-myself self.” The lessons I’d begun learning at the House of Bread about caring for others had been a mere drizzle, a trickle, a baby beginning that ran amuck because I’d relied on myself and not God. Now God-engineered, major-flood lessons in agape love had washed over me daily and started to overflow to the other people my life touched.

Although most of the team members had matured some, Geoff’s transformation was probably even more dramatic than mine. He may have started out a useless lump of fool’s gold, but God remade him into the real thing—twenty-four sparkling karats’ worth.

He’d taken some seriously bad risks trying to get my attention. If I hadn’t loved and accepted him, his guilt would probably have crippled him beyond repair. But God didn’t want Geoff to live that way, and He wouldn’t let me ignore or reject him.

Not only did he become one of the hardest workers, he also did a one-eighty in his attitude toward Aleesha and the villagers. In turn, he began earning their love and respect.

He and I talked frequently and more freely than before, and our conversations were pleasant and positive. Although his high school conversion had been genuine, his emotional and spiritual immaturity had prevented him from saying no to the friends he’d trusted.

Geoff had already sought and accepted God’s forgiveness, but I wasn’t sure he’d forgiven himself. He hadn’t surrendered his guilt.

I hoped he’d do that soon, and I’d help anyway I could.

I still believed in avoiding mission-trip romances, but—now that I knew Geoff was a Christian with much to offer in the building of God’s kingdom—I had to fight off the temptation to ignore my own rule. He didn’t pressure me about my stubborn refusal to get romantic.

Doggone it, though! That just made him all the more desirable.

Anjelita must have sensed that we were leaving the next morning, even before she noticed team members gathering their belongings. She clung to me as if that might keep me in Santa María and walked so close I almost tripped over her on our way to the mess tent for supper. I wished my suitcase were big enough to carry her and Rosa home in.
How much would that kind of overweight baggage cost?
I giggled at the thought.

We enjoyed our last supper together. Anjelita ate a small can of meat for a change, but I had beef jerky again. Plus a can of pork ‘n’ beans. Breakfast tomorrow would probably be the last jerky I’d eat in a long time if my father had anything to say about it. I’d eaten it three times daily for twelve days and enjoyed every chewy, challenging bite. Only a dog’s rawhide chew would have made my jaws, teeth, and gums stronger and healthier.

Although I was actually looking forward to pizza again—perhaps at the airport—I wished I could share the experience with Rosa and Anjelita. Does Mexican cuisine have anything comparable to pizza? Although the villagers would have hosted us royally if they’d been in a position to, I couldn’t believe we’d spent two weeks in Mexico without a single bite of authentic Mexican food.

But we hadn’t come to Mexico to eat. We’d come to work, and—to the best of my knowledge—we’d fulfilled our assignment. We did what God asked. We reached out to the residents of this tiny community in every way we could. We shared their joys and learned to understand some of their hardships.

Although Santa María might remain unknown to census takers and tax collectors—they would never find it without knowing its GPS coordinates—it would remain in our hearts forever. The villagers had become almost as important to us as our own families—and in some ways, more important.

We couldn’t stay in Santa María, though. Despite a job well done, we probably couldn’t accomplish anything else. Besides, we were tired and ready to go home.

“It’ll be great to get back to civilization.”

“I want to see my family again, even my bratty little sister.”

“I’m going to take a hot bath and soak in the tub all day.”

“I can hardly wait to wash my hair.”

“I want to eat hot, freshly prepared meals. And coffee … give me coffee. I’ll bathe in it.”

“Forget coffee. I want an ice cold soda—with lots of crushed ice.”

“I want to wear clean clothes, ones I haven’t done sweaty work in, and go hang out with my friends.”

“Give me my bed again. I’ll sleep for a week.”

But each desire to go home had a matching lament.

“These villagers are some of the finest people I’ve ever known.”

“I wish they lived where I could see them every day.”

“No matter how hard we’ve worked, this has been a mountaintop experience. I dread coming back down.”

“How can I just leave the villagers behind? They’re my second family now.”

But more than anything else, team members shared my concerns over the villagers’ spiritual needs.

“We’ve helped meet their physical needs, but what about the spiritual ones?”

“We couldn’t give our testimonies, yet I believe they would’ve been receptive if we’d been able to talk with them.”

“I sure hope Kimmy’s reading of Luke got through to them. At least to one person, anyhow.”

“I’ll keep praying for the villagers, but that doesn’t seem like enough.”

“If only we knew we could come back sometime …” “Or some other Christian group …”

“Lord, let there be a translator next time … and let there be a next time. Please.”

Just as I’d become part of Rosa’s family, every team member had adopted one or more villagers. Although nobody set out to befriend anyone in particular, God brought us together in a mutually comfortable and comforting way. Every villager had a close friendship with one or more team members.

Despite the language barrier, we’d somehow communicated our love, concern, and acceptance to these needy people. But we weren’t missionaries “up here” working with our target group “down there.” We were peers—equals in our humanity—and the villagers’ pained expressions indicated the depth of their grief over our leaving.

But if we’d completed our assignment, why did we feel like we were walking out on an unfinished task? Did seed planters always pay that kind of price? If God hadn’t assigned me to read the Gospel of Luke to the villagers, I would have been only a groundbreaker—a tiller of unfamiliar soil—not a sower of the world’s most important seeds.

At least we’d finished building the cottages, though. Knowing the villagers would be snug and dry during the upcoming rains was good.