Humbled

March 29, 2012
Dulce Garcia

Today is Thursday (I think?!) and day 6 of our trip. My skin is darker, my back is sore, my voice is a little more scratchy, and my heart is both full and heavy. We have just spent the last 3 days in the very poor, very small community of Chacacal in the municipal village of Simojovel. When I say small and poor, I mean we literally bathed in the little river in town. This community has no running water, they cook over an open flame, and there is barely any electricity. Our time spent there consisted of a lot of playing with the beautiful… and I mean beautiful children of the village. Their smiles could light up a room and anyone’s heart (and probably the whole village if their power went completely out!). It addition to playing with the kids, we obviously came to do WORK! So work we did, let me tell you… I have never worked so hard in my life (& I’m not sure the guys on the team had either… even by their own admission). Our first afternoon there we helped to build gardens. The dream of the seminary students is that the people of Chacacal have their own sustainable agriculture and development. As soon as we planted the last seed the rain came… and then the fun! I spent the next hour playing futbol in the rain with the children. The vast majority of these children, mind you, had no shoes and still played fearlessly and with as much (if not more) joy than I have ever seen in children.

The following day (Tuesday, day 4) was the hardest. We got to work on two different houses of two of the men that are leaders of the Baptist church in the village. Some of our team was putting the walls made of adobe blocks, and the group I was with got to dig 10 different holes to help with the structure of the house. We began the project with the sun on one side of the sky and as we worked, we watched it make its way clear to the opposite side of the sky. We continued to work on the homes the next day, ate with the family who heads up the church, and you guessed it ended the day with more playing!

Our time in Chacacal was incredibly humbling. I continued to utilize my translating… but in Chacacal our times together were tri-lingual as we had to overcome the Tzotzil language, then to Spanish, and then to English. Many of the people spoke Spanish, but there were several who did not. This was the first time I had been to a country where I encountered a language that I was not able to speak and it was tougher than I had imagined. At the same time however, the children were quick to step in and help build the bridges for us. Most of the people in Chacacal (& the majority in this region of Chiapas) are indigenous people of Mayan descent, and have endured years of discrimination from the Mexican population. This is a part of my heritage that I never knew and it was heartbreaking to hear. I was thankful to show these people the love of Christ and to tell the women how beautiful they are and that I view them as sisters. Before we left the women of the main family we’d spent so much time with even gave me a parting gift, which left me speechless and humbled yet again. I pray that the Lord was able to use our interactions to bring some healing.