Painting Paradise

A couple weeks ago, we went with one of our teams into Paradise to paint the soccer stadium and hang out with some of the kids. As we lugged down the huge paint jugs and all of our supplies, the kids and families met us and asked us if they could help us paint. Of course we said yes. As we started to distrubute the supplies and get started painting, kids came from all over the neighborhood. (One thing I have learned quickly from spending time in Paradise is that when it comes to gringos, news travels fast when we arrive.)  After painting for a few minutes, there were more kids on the stands than there were gringos. Looking into their sweet eyes, we couldn’t help but give the kids the brushes and let them go to town, painting their stadium. It was truly a beautiful sight to look up into the stands and see the kids painting their own thing. I think the kids got more paint on each other than they got on the stands, even the dog was painted blue at the end of the day, but with each swipe of the brush and uproar of laugher as they got paint in my hair or accidentally painted a huge stipe across my legs as they walked by, I was infinitely blessed. I loved getting to know their precious faces, and asking their names over and over again, and listening to them giggle when I messed up what I was trying to say. They just smiled up at me with those big brown eyes and there was nothing I could do but hold their paint covered hands and giggle at the fact that I had no clue what I was saying. 

As we painted, we talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up and which subjects in school were their favorite. I stumbled through my broken Spanish and marveled at them as they taught me the words to say, pronouncing them slow and without accent. We ran around chasing each other with paint, and laughed as they put their hand prints on my T-shirt at the end of the day, forever making their claim on my life. 

As we painted and played and talked, I got to tell the kids that at the end of the week I wasn’t going home. That I would see them again soon, that I loved them too much to leave.  The looks on their faces were sometimes puzzled and other times full of joy as they realized that this was my home and that all of our laughs and broken words wont just stand as an incredible memory, but rather the start of relationships. 

I went home that night and played conversations and memories over and over in my head.  Josue, one of the best little painters out there, wants to be an architect. Julio wants to be a doctor. Yoselin wants to be a secretary. They all have dreams, just like I did as a kid. My dream was to be a missionary, and after years of encouragement and lots of prayer here I am. Now, my dream is to pay it forward. 

My dream is to make their dreams a reality. 

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Not so distant

I knew being a missionary in Guatemala was going to be hard, but in the last day I have been hit with the realization that it is going to be harder than I thought. Yesterday when we went to the work site to pay our workers. Don Chepe, our block mason, told us about how his wife was very sick. She has diabetes and is no longer reacting to insulin. Her blood sugar is staying at about 550. On top of the diabetes, she also has a lung infection as well as a urinary tract infection. In the last few weeks she has been having a series of strokes. She is beyond sick, and Don Chepe is still at work, making our vision come to life. We prayed for Don Chepe, his wife, and the rest of his family as a team and then we all went back to work. Just another heart breaking day in the life... but it wasn't over.
At dinner we were listening to a CD that our church had given us and one of the pastors voice came on and Juan Carlos solemnly said, that's pastor (I forgot his name, but we will call him Alberto), their pastor and close friend. At that moment the entire table became silent. I sat there quietly knowing something was wrong and soon Eric, the other intern who also lives with us, told me the story of how Alberto died. He had gone with a friend to pick up a car in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods. The gang members captured him, shot him and put him in the back of the car. They then called the Police and told them they had "left a present for them in the back of the car". This was two months ago. Everyone started crying. Sandra, my Guatemalan mom, said that they hadn't had the chance to cry about it until now. My heart continued to break.
I love these people like they are my own, and can't imagine the struggles they go through. Every day I'm here the hardships become more real. A lot of the time I think about the problems of Guatemala being so removed from me, but in all reality, they aren't at all. In that case, they are removed by two degrees. Their troubles aren't so distant anymore. I'm not so distant anymore.

That's why I'm here.

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