Be strong and
courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to
their fathers to give them. Joshua 1:6
This trip was about promises. Promises kept up
to five hundred years later. And sometimes we get tired of waiting.
Mary was ten-years-old
when the Americans first came to her neighbourhood, to the church down the
street. And the laughing papuchi
rides and the balloons and the candy lured her into the story. The story where
she first heard Jesus loved her and had a plan for her life. And she believed
this story. This Jesus loves me. And they sang songs about His love, and
learned verses about His love, and she stood up and promised to follow Him
forever.
But life stepped in and
this tough guy with a swagger who promised to love her too, and she ran off and
married him. This guy was full of machismo
and was mean and yelled groserias at
passers-by, And beat her. A lot. And lots
of times she thought about those nice smiling Americans and their Jesus. And
the doctor said she could not have any babies ever. And life was long and hard
and she was tired. And Jesus said, “All you who are weary, come to me and I
will give you rest.” And she returned to her first love, and began to sneak out
to church because she would get beat if she got caught. And Jesus gave her
three little children. Who also got beat and hid under the kitchen table so
they couldn’t get hit. And something I didn’t quite catch when I was painting Mary’s
face had something to do with his machismo
and not allowing her to carry three little kids to church all by himself so he
started coming too and then he gave his life to Jesus and everything changed.
And they moved back to
Mexicali, where everyone could marvel at his changed life. And he drives around
a beat-up white Toyota with a big speaker on top and she walks behind the car
and sells ant poison and cockroach killer to the people who come out of their
homes. And she serves breakfast to the little street kids whose parents beat
them. And he hangs out with the young men who are tangled up in drugs and are bien tremendos and get thrown out of
middle school after a week and a half. Because he knows all about being bien tremendo.
And our scraggly little
group of eight kids and a fireman and me show up on the dusty street outside the
cement block El Buen Samaritano with our soccer balls and facepaints and beads
and we are an answer to a prayer and a promise. A thirty-year prayer in
waiting.
We even had a half-eaten
jar of peanut butter. Mary never forgot the jars of peanut butter.
And my whole wheat sweet
rolls are packed up in the basket and napkin. To celebrate His power over death
and hopelessness and long cold nights of waiting. He is risen. Risen indeed.
Hi Christy! This is Molly from InterVarsity whom you talked to last night! First of all, thank you so much for coming. It's such an encouragement. The next thing, I'm surprised about the story of Mary. She prayed for thirty years? I was wondering how did she do it. How could she bear all of that pain of abuse from her husband for that long?
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