Adventures of All Kinds

Yesterday I had a new experience in Guatemala. No, it wasn’t eating some strange food, or going to some family event....no, for the first time ever....I clogged a Guatemalan toilet. Now, it must be explained that my normal problem down here is constipation due to the lack of fiber in the Guatemalan diet. However, this past week I have been being a good little patient and have eaten more fruit and vegetables when available, along with this sandy fiber supplement Tito gives me called Linaza which is kind of like Guatemalan Metamucil. (I swear, with my preoccupation with my bowel habits I feel like I am an 85 year old man trapped in a 24 year old’s body!) Needless to say, while sparing you the gory details, I was pleased to find all these little digestion tricks worked their magic, and the day after we came back from our clinic, I am proud to declare that I had my best BM of the trip.

Despite the plethora of positive things I could say about this country, one thing I abhor here is the feeble suction of their impotent toilets. After several wildly unsuccessful flushes, I realized I would have to call in reinforcements. I quickly looked up the Spanish word for plunger in my dictionary, finding it to be “émbolo.” However, when I sheepishly asked Brenda where the “émbolo” was, she taught me their word for plunger, which is much more aptly named, “La bomba.” (the bomb). Considering this name more accurately describes the clientele for a plunger, I figured we were in business. Brenda graciously made sure I knew what to do, told me not to worry, and just asked that I try not to get the water on the floor. After shooting up a prayer for protection, I opened the door and jumped into the trenches.

However, my zeal to plunge the crap out of that toilet (pun completely intended), was overly ambitious. Contrary to Brenda’s warning, after a few plunges, I plunged too hard and water splashed not only all over the bathroom, but on me as well. Fruitlessly attempting to shove the thought of what had just happened into the deep recesses of my mind, I continued to plunge away, hoping Brenda would not ask what happened. Nevertheless, after many futile cycles of plunging and unsuccessful flushing, I had to call in the cavalry and Brenda quickly came to my aid. With the finesse of a Guatemalan expert, she made quick work of that infernal terd, and I was once again humbled as an inept Gringo. She, of course, made light of the whole thing and told me not to worry, but at least afterwards, to make it up to her, I gave the bathroom a good cleaning.

While I’m sure you all would love to hear more from the chronicles of Justin’s Bathroom Adventures, but I guess I should get to some of the serious stuff. The past week, we went back to Lake Atitlan with an awesome group from Houston, Texas. This time, we took an hour-long boat ride across the lake to a small city called San Pablo. Here we did clinics in the morning and a VBS for the kids in the afternoon. These people speak a different Mayan dialect called Sutujíl. During this clinic we had 3 dentists, glasses, pharmacy, and an area for the children to play. Also, outside in this little grotto type area, one of the Houston women ran a type of women’s ministry group for the women in the village.

Because many rural parts of Guatemala are still extremely patriarchal, there is a very large problem with domestic abuse. This ministry was targeted at giving the women a chance to share their feelings about life within the company of other women, something that they rarely get a chance to do. The first day, unfortunately, they had a

male Sutujíl translator, which made things kind of awkward. However, the rest of the week, they had a woman, and Robyn (the woman in charge) told me later that it was an amazing time. While at first the women were very closed and did not share much, as time went on, they opened up about some of their problems. One woman thanked Robyn for telling her that God loves her, since she had began to believe that because so many bad things happened in her life, God hated her. It sounded like it was a great time of healing for these struggling women.

This clinic I worked in intake again, greeting the patients, and doing my best to represent Christ, setting the stage for the rest of their clinic experience. While I do my best to imitate Christ with a friendly demeanor at intake, this past clinic I learned a very good lesson regarding how NOT to lighten the mood.

Over my three years of doing intake, I have always tried to be warm and inviting

with the patients, often joking with them regardless of the single and often double language barrier. One way I do this is by often asking the men in Spanish if they are pregnant, causing them to laugh. However, this time, I thought, “Let’s change it up a bit and have some fun.” Normally, I have to ask all the women if they are breast-feeding, so I decided since the pregnant joke always works so well, I’ll now ask the guys if they are breast-feeding instead of the pregnancy joke. Awesome idea, right? Well, an 18-year-old guy sits down, and I think, “Perfect. This guy will think this joke is hilarious!” So after asking his name and other things, I finally ask him if he was breast-feeding. He laughs really hard, and I immediately felt so pleased with myself. However, this pride quickly disappeared, as a woman whom I’m pretty sure was his mother leaned over and said,

“Only with his girlfriend.”

I was utterly shocked and embarrassed as was the mortified 18 year-old-boy sitting in front of me. Needless to say, I learned my lesson about keeping my yap shut when trying to joke with patients.

In the afternoons, we ran a VBS for the children in the village, which was a very fun time. While we didn’t know how many kids were going to show up, about 80 kids showed up each day! The Houston team did a fantastic job at making the curriculum for the VBS. We started off each day singing several songs, including “Soldados de Jesus” (Soldiers of Jesus) and my personal favorite “Sapo” which was a song with a bunch of gestures describing a frog who meets a girl frog who’s friends with Jesus. After singing, they did a Bible lesson with a felt board (total blast from my nerdy Christian past), and then a skit, and then a craft.

While it is a great time with these kids, and we present the Gospel, I sometimes wonder if any of the kids are really absorbing the message of Jesus Christ. With this group especially, it was more difficult because there was a double language barrier along with the fact that they were quite rambunctious on the day we presented the Gospel to them. Despite my skepticism as to the effectiveness of our VBS, God gave me a little object lesson.

While most of the crafts were relatively simple, one of the days, the group told me that they were going to have the kids step in paint and put their footprint on a paper plate, signifying them stepping into faith on the cross. Being the clean and possibly mildly OCD person that I am, I prepared for the worst on this craft day. In my mind, I envisioned blue paint from the floor to the ceiling after those kids wreaked their havoc upon it. Last minute, the Houston team decided to use the children’s fists and fingers to make the footprints instead of taking off their shoes. Although I still envisioned a complete disaster, God taught me an important lesson. The children were very organized and were even meticulous with washing their hands in the water basins afterwards! I feel like this was God’s way of telling me, see? You worry about these silly little things and expect the worst, when so many times things work out, even when before you couldn’t see how I would make it work.

God used this smaller object lesson with the paint to remind me of His bigger lesson regarding the entire VBS. Even when I felt that maybe we weren’t getting through to those kids, God showed me that in His own transcendent way, our job was merely to present the information, and He would take care of the rest. We often never know exactly how our words or actions in Christ will affect someone else. It is our job to simply be God’s instruments and rest in the fact that God will bring the music He plays through us to the right ears at the right time.

I don’t believe it was coincidence that during this time I was reading from Mark 4:1-20, in which Jesus tells the parable about the seeds falling on different soil. Some fall on the path and immediately get eaten up by birds, others fall onto rocky places where the soil is shallow and they spring up quickly, but because they don’t have a root, they dry up and wither. Others grow among thorns and are choked out. Finally, some fall on good soil, grow strong and produce a crop, and multiply thirty, sixty, or even hundred times their original size.

This became my prayer for those children. While to me it seemed like our words were falling on the shallow path of confused or inattentive little ears, I realized that my finite perspective is nothing like God’s. Instead, I prayed that with each Bible lesson, skit, and craft, the Gospel would fall upon good soil in these precious hearts, and in a way

I will never understand, God would multiply the seed to not only change their little lives, but also their parents and eventually their entire village. While in my economy of reasoning this may seem like idealistic lunacy, God reminded me that we are playing by His rules, not mine. I will probably never know what ultimately happened to those children until heaven, but at least I can pray that our words fell on good soil and rest in God’s transcendent plan for them.