Thursday, June 3 - time to say goodbye

Luke 21:1-5

You don´t care how dirty your hands and body are; you don´t think about shaking hands, hugging, and kissing the children; you don´t question where the food comes from or how it is prepared even though everything you read in your travel preparation guide tells you to beware. In fact, you rejoice about eating fresh tortillas for the fourth meal in a row - 1) because they´re absolutely delicious and 2) because you see and understand how much these women pout into making them for you. They use their best ingredients, giving everything they have to ensure that our visit is a god one and that we have plenty to eat. You know meat is a luxury because you see the health and shape of the animals. They are often more skinny than the people, which is extremely sad because these animals often provide the only financial support to the family. And when meat is a luxury, yet you eat it at almost every meal, you know you have been given everything.

As we eat this morning, I am reminded of the story of the widow´s offering. Jesus watched rich men put their offering into the plate out of abundance, while the widow gave out of poverty all that she had to live on. In every way possible, these people of Huitzapula have done just that for us.

This morning, it´s also time for us to say our goodbyes - always a hard thing for me. Even though we were only there for a day and a half, we bonded with these people in a way like no other - breaking bread together, playing together, worshipping together, praying together, sharing together in their joys and blessings, but also in their sickness, suffering, and hardships. There is great pain among the people of Huitzapula, Meson, Zopilotepec, and Totolapa. Some of this pain, disease, and accidents, we can understand because we experience it in our world, but the poverty and lack of resources just to survive is something that many Americans will never know. As we leave, my heart breaks - for the trials and tribulations that these people face and also because an experience in a place like this in terms of hospitality and community is not the same anywhere in our culture. I hope through this encounter with the people of these communities that I can show more hospitality and act more lovingly and more caringly. I hope I can learn to give to others as the widow in Luke´s gospel and the people of Huitzapula.

It truly is a different world here. While I may never have the opportunity to return, I will carry these people in my heart always. Amen.