One brick, one heart, one life at a time. There's a feeling in this community you can't really describe. The kind that pulls you towards it and intertwines your life with that of it's own, the kind that makes you sad to leave after just two nights, and then keeps you wondering about the people you left behind in the days and weeks that follow. I jotted down a few things about the people we met here, and I think I'll try to translate my scrawl here so you can meet them too.
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Welcome to Presto! We drove about 2.5hours out of Sucre to get here and were met with a really dry heat, an immense load of dust, loads of animals, and a very warm community. It reminded me of the time Joel, Muz, Cynth & I paid to go to this Thai Village, yet this one had so much more purpose. We were greeted with warm Spanish words, handshakes & kisses, and bright-eyed helpful kids who were excited to see visitors. Soon after we sat down to a lovely soup and then this rice/meat/vegies plate which was excellent and so much more than enough.
They always fed you first, and then anyone else who is in sight on your home grounds will be fed as well, and finally their own family last. It's quite amazing the type of hospitality they give and I always wondered how they cater/ have enough food for everyone if people keep on walking in and getting fed simply because they were there...but the pot seemed to always produce that one extra scoop that was needed for that one extra mouth there was to feed.
One lady - Martina, gave up her entire house for us to sleep at night. It consisted of one fairly large mud-brick room that had a couple of beds on one side, with cooking pots on the other and a wall of miscellaneous bits and pieces. We gratefully set up camp there and I just hoped I wouldn't get allergies from the baby kittens that were sleeping on our mattress. Martina intended to sleep outside in the cold, but we insisted she stay under her roof and she ended up placing herself against the door sleeping on a battered llama skin.
We were told later by Uncle Alan that there was this thing called 'Chagas' disease that you catch by being bitten by a Vinchuka beetle that comes in through the cracks in the wall. The scary thing about this disease is that once you're bitten, you probably wouldn't know until 10-20years after infection. And then, you start having to deal with cardiac problems and heart failure. it was really quite sad to see fit young men being diagnosed with the disease (Lawrence could tell after monitoring their heart on his ECG machine), and then just knowing their fate given the lack of money and ability to get effective treatment. Sometimes, Lawrence tried not to tell them as it would really put someone like that in a rather hopeless state of mind.
Huana. Mother of the family and all who enters her doors. She was very warm and caring, and a great cook! I really didn't expect rice and pasta and noodles in continuum to taste so good but she managed to make it just so. She served with her heart and you could tell, and had a beautiful lilt to her voice as she sang praises to God. In the picture below she sits with her two youngest children - Alejandra (7), and Noellia (1 and a bit I think).
Alejandra. This name belongs to girl in the top right picture below with the big eyes and curious face. She was a sweet little hyper girl of seven, super-small for her age but always wanting to help in some way or another - offering to carry a bag or a guitar or a tripod or just about anything. She was full of energy and life, pulling on your hand or jumping spontaneously into your lap...i miss her great big smile and her never-ending poses!
Antonia. (Bottom right in the photo above). Just to give you a bit of a family tree - Huana is married to Fausto, but Antonia is Fausto's grand-daughter from his first marriage (to Huana's sister). This makes Antonia almost the same age as one of Fausto's own daughters (Claudia) which is kind of weird but they all get along just fine. This is one of the only pictures I have of Antonia smiling, she often had this guarded, angry look on her face. She has apparantly had a hard life and it shows. Signs of abuse and the fact that no father is present, Antonia is quick to flare up and she seems to have lost her innocence as a child. Hard work shows on her face and on her hands and she doesn't smile quite as fast but still, she sings song with her heart and with conviction.
She's just 'older' than the rest when she shouldn't be.
Obedio ('Santos'). This one's funny. The guy we called 'Santos' the whole trip ended up having the name 'Obedia', only we literally found out in the last hour. Apparantly a bit of a rebel, he'd stick around for some games but quickly tire of Bible stories and anything which required too much concentration. He took a great bum-chum liking to Joel and started following him, kicking round a ball with him, and bringing him places (like peeling dried maize and feeding pigs!). Liling said Joel as an older guy was definitely having impact on him and also that he had spoken to the Pator and told him he'd like to do what these 'hermanos and hermanas' were doing. That's pretty amazing. I'm so interested to find out what God can and will do in lives like these.
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"Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world...
Red or yellow, black or white,
They're all precious in his sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world."
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claudia. (Center, with the hat on). She's the dependable 'older sister'. The mature, sweet one of the bunch who tried really hard to connect with us, teaching us words and phrases in Spanish and Quechua and conversing the best she could - even resorting to writing stuff on paper at one point. The only girl who could do the 'scoobydoos' at this point, and the one who patiently showed everyone else how to. I wanted to write to her and tell her how lovely I thought she was, to encourage her like she encouraged me, and in a little way, to help her to grow more and more in the reality and greatness of God's love.
These are a few snaps I took while we were having church. Gathered together outside after the rain turned the dust into mud-sludge on our last morning, we sat on wooden planks and sang in Quechua spending time in sweet fellowship. The bottom left picture is of church the night before. That particular family didn't have electricity because they couldn't afford it, and a couple of bulbs from next door were strung across to provide a warm glow for the evening.
These people really found it a joy to meet and sing and pray and hear God's Word being preached, and would often walk over an hour just to attend, and then have to take the trek home after dark as well. It was really amazing.
It's not the one pictured here, but I really liked one of the Quechua songs we sang:
"I praise him with my heart.
I praise him with my mouth.
If I lack my mouth - I will praise him with my hands.
If I lack my hands - I will praise him with my feet.
If I lack my feet - I will praise him with my life.
If I lack my life - it's that I have gone with Him...
Next to Our Lord..."
Voy a seguir a Jesus!
Fun time! It's time for Sunday school and Liling's lesson was about Jesus being the Way, the Truth, and the Life. She had actually planned to a banner years before in her prep time, but figured that cardboard would have to do. It so happened that I had brought a large calico banner for the purpose of a big groupie effort and it found it's use right here, with lots of pride and colour. Since all the kids were either barefoot or in open sandals, Julie and Jeanne found a washbasin and a cloth and cleaned and dried their feet, and then traced them onto some bright coloured felt. I helped cut them out as they wrote their name on their footprint, and painted in the words that Joel had carefully stenciled out. It was a great time of just working together and also in good time, as they were hoping to get a church building put up soon and could use it for a nice piece of decoration.
John 14:6
"Jesus le dijo: Yo soy el camino, la verdad y la vida; nadie viene al Padre, sino por mi."
God bless, xoxo