by Roger Bruner
Delmar took over.
I pronounced the second word as much like Delmar as I could. Although muchos was a familiar word, I’d always said it with an a: muchas. Did the variation have something to do with the word that followed it?
Delmar stressed the syllable I’d gotten wrong and made me repeat it several times.
“Bueno!” His praise made me eager to proceed. But before I could attempt tentado, he moved the toothpick to the beginning of the verse. I was glad he hadn’t broken it in frustration.
I wished I could jot down the pronunciations.
My teachers insisted that I get both words right before letting me move to the third one. Although my brain had spent too much of the summer in neutral, it roared into gear as I said, “Habiendo muchos” to their satisfaction and together they said, “Bueno!”
Basilio glanced at the sky. None of the villagers had watches. But he could apparently tell from the sun’s position that he and Delmar had spent too much time with me.
They didn’t seem to want to stop, though. And I didn’t want them to, either.
Another villager, Ernesto, came along, and the three men held a hurried conversation. He got water, came back out, and sat down on the ground beside me while Basilio and Delmar returned to work.
“Muchos gracias!” I yelled as they left, proud to have corrected my former mispronunciation.
“Muchas,” one of them corrected me with a smile as he turned briefly and then kept on going.
“Muchos? Muchas? I’ll never get this. Gracious me!” I muttered.
“No, Señorita Kim,” Ernesto said quite seriously. “Gracias, no gracious.”
I could barely keep a straight face. Ernesto was so cute the way he lived up to his name.
He seemed as interested in helping as Delmar and Basilio had been. They apparently suggested that he keep using the same teaching method they used. He permitted me to attempt another word only after I correctly read all the words that preceded it. Thank goodness, that technique applied only to one verse at a time. Once I got it right, I could move on.
How dreary if I would have to go through all of Luke that way, though. I’d never finish before leaving Santa María. Not that I expected to, anyhow.
This challenge was in God’s hands.
chapter fifty-two
What an amazing day,” I said to Aleesha as I sat down on my sleeping bag. “Ouch!”
I was so hoarse I could barely talk and so sunburned I couldn’t lie back without moaning. Boy, did God allow me to suffer the consequences of failing to use sunscreen. I’d always used it to get darker, not to protect myself. With my light brownish complexion, I thought I was immune to sunburn.
That’s what I pretended, but the truth was I’d forgotten to put sunscreen on that morning.
I could only blame myself for that part of my misery. But sitting on the hard ground without moving anything but my forefinger and mouth for hours at a time had left the rest of my body stiff and sore. That way of sitting hadn’t been so bad at first, but once word got around about my Bible reading, the villagers began showing up to listen, not just to get snacks and water. I couldn’t take a chance of losing their interest by getting up to stretch.
They listened intently and were generous in offering help. Maybe they kept me tied down to the hard ground, but they kept me hopping mentally—hopping, tripping, and trying to get moving again.
Now that my body was overbaked from five-plus hours in the sun and my mind equally charred by the rigors of my lessons, I caught myself wondering how to pronounce English in Spanish. But that exercise was so far beyond me, and I forced it out of my mind.
“Amazing isn’t the word for today, girl!” Aleesha’s voice brought me back to the present. I was still so out of it I didn’t remember I’d said something to her. “That sunburn … you trying to pull a John Howard Griffin on me?”
“John Howard Griffin?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
Aleesha changed from a sassy, amusing tone to an educational one. I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t, and I wasn’t up to learning anything else today. My protests wouldn’t have stopped her, though. Neither would a planeload of nuclear bombs.
“Girl, John Howard Griffin was that white dude who pigmented his skin to look like a … Negro during the mid-twentieth century so he could travel around the Deep South and experience being black. That’s why he called his book—”
“Black Like Me!” I shot back as thoughts of a ninth grade book report flashed in my brain. “You saying the sun’s turning me black?”
“Sun isn’t that powerful,” she said with a smirk. “I think your book title’s gonna be Red Like Lobster.”
She cackled. I just shook my head.
“Guess I’ll have the same guy who took pictures of Griffin’s journey take pictures of me. I met him once, you know ….” Silence. That didn’t surprise me.
“He used to work for a Christian missionary organization in Richmond.”
“You serious, gal?” Her wide-open eyes reflected the light from the bonfire. Getting Aleesha’s attention like that was a major accomplishment. She knew so much about so many subjects she usually made me feel dumb.
“I’m serious, gal,” I said, grinning. “I met him on a building tour when I was visiting my aunt. She worked there.” Better not admit I don’t even remember if he was black or white and hope she doesn’t ask.
This Twilight Zone was unbearable. Aleesha got quiet and stayed quiet. She’d never taken so long to respond, and she’d already set a new record. Fifteen seconds, still speechless, and counting.
Another fifteen seconds later, she said, “Guess I’ll have to forgive you for liking Gone with the Wind, huh?”
I’d hoped to earn a few points with my vague and convoluted relationship to Black Like Me, but I hadn’t expected Aleesha to express that much approval. If I knew her, she’d change the subject now.
“Just how amazing was today, Kim? Us mission team members noticed the villagers going for water more often than usual. Now, the day was unusually hot, but something special must have happened. Did God turn the water into wine or what?”
I took a long swig from a nearly bottle. “Nope. Still water.” I snapped my fingers in mock disappointment.
Then I explained the whole Lucas thing to her in a hundred thousand words or less, every single one of them in a properly enunciated Georgia drawl.
My throat had never been this dry, though, and talking in detail about my Bible reading adventures was such torture that I wondered if my mouth was sunburned on the inside. If my tongue peeled—ugh!—that secret would go to the grave with me.
I couldn’t imagine that a good night’s sleep—if my sunburn permitted me to sleep at all—would restore me to normal, but Scarlett and I would wait and worry about it tomorrow, and that settled it for me. That and my confidence that God would get me through this experience.
“That’s good about reading Lucas,” Aleesha said.
I waited. Would she say anything else?
“That’s real good.”
She didn’t say any more.
I reentered The Twilight Zone—or had I ever left it? Despite Aleesha’s brief, positive statements about Luke and me, two prolonged periods of silence in the same evening were enough to scare the daylights out of me. When I’m scared, I keep talking. “Who would’ve thought bringing a Spanish Bible to a place like Santa María could result in an outreach effort like this?”
“No surprise to me, girl. God speaks Spanish, too. Him and old Luke there. In fact, I’ll bet God taught him. Subliminally …” Now that Aleesha was talking again, she didn’t stop. But that’s the last thing I heard. By then I’d relaxed, rolled over on my less-fried side, and shut my eyes.
chapter fifty-three
Day 11
I woke up rested and refreshed. My throat felt fine, my voice sounded normal, and my tongue didn’t appear to be peeling. But after a day of start-and-stop reading, evening fo
und me exhausted and nearly voiceless again. The day had gone well, yet my progress seemed so … slow.
I hadn’t had much free time, but I made a point of spending time with Rosa that evening.
Her house wasn’t officially complete, much less ready to move into, but I understood her insistence on sleeping there. My parents had taken pictures of our house when it was under construction. I’d seen a photo of them camping out on the living room carpet one evening when they needed a reminder that the house would soon be their home.
Most of the villagers—probably all of them—slept in their unfinished houses, too.
Rosa’s place consisted of interior walls of unpainted sheetrock, plywood floors, and an amateurishly constructed roof that would have flunked the seasonal rains test in its present condition. But it would be fine by the end of the next day.
Hanging from nails on opposite sides of Rosa’s doorway were two treasures that grabbed my attention.
One was a good-sized golden crucifix, perhaps fifteen inches high. Far more ornate and intricately fashioned than anything I’d ever seen back home, it looked like it belonged in a cathedral. I could only guess at its age—twenty-five, fifty, maybe a hundred years old. Thousands of adoring hands and perhaps as many prayerful pairs of lips had worn parts of it thin.
Have Rosa and Anjelita ever touched this crucifix in worship? Although it’s obviously important to them, I’ve never seen them do it. Does she know what it is? Or is it just a fancy decoration she found somewhere after the storm?
Rosa’s other treasure was a photograph, weatherworn around the edges and a bit wrinkled, but otherwise intact. She took it down and placed it in my hands. The picture showed Anjelita with a girl who looked four or five years older. The back bore a time stamp—thirteen months earlier.
“Ah-LAHZ-nay,” Rosa said as she pointed to the older girl.
“Ah-LAHZ-nay,” I said back to her. “Ah-LAHZ-nay,” I said once more to make sure I had the pronunciation correct.
Rosa smiled, but her eyes glistened with moisture. I jotted the phonetic spelling in my little notebook, handed it to Rosa, and indicated that she should write down the spelling. That was one name I wanted to be sure I could spell correctly.
Although Rosa couldn’t explain that Alazne was her other daughter, the girls were too similar—eyes, nose, hair, chin, complexion, facial shape—not to be sisters. Even their ears looked alike. Had they been the same age, I would have taken them for twins. Their matching outfits would have eliminated any doubts.
I examined the photograph again. Although Alazne appeared to have two normal arms, she was leaning on crutches. If she was handicapped and not just recovering from an injury—I couldn’t see the crutches in detail, but they showed signs of wear and tear—I could better understand why the villagers associated maldita with Rosa’s family.
I hadn’t seen any other photographs in Santa María, and I wondered how Rosa had kept the storm from destroying this one. More than that, I wondered what had become of her older daughter. I’d met all of the villagers, but not her. Rosa would have introduced us if Anjelita didn’t.
Although Rosa didn’t break out crying when I handed the picture back, her eyes welled up with the most immense tears I’d ever seen. My grandmom’s death was the only one I’d ever experienced, and she’d been terminally ill so long, I never thought of her as alive. I didn’t shed a single tear at her funeral.
But Rosa was obviously grieving. Whatever had become of Alazne, she hadn’t simply run away from home.
As I looked at the photo in Rosa’s hand, I recalled the double take I’d done when I first saw it. No matter how much Anjelita and Alazne resembled one another, they weren’t the only two look-alikes.
I bore a close enough resemblance to both of Rosa’s daughters to make me wonder for a moment whether I might somehow be hers, too. Stranger things have happened. But then I laughed at myself. Rosa would have been no more than eight or nine at the time of my birth!
No wonder Anjelita had chosen me for an older sister. I looked like hers.
Some of the people I’d known from other denominations didn’t seem to be Christians. The evidence just wasn’t there. They were more gossipy, more selfish, more unloving, and less forgiving than many people who don’t even profess Jesus as Lord.
That seemed to be true of some of the teens in my youth group, too—including kids who’d made public professions of faith and been baptized. I planned to give them some personal attention when I got home.
What a gap between churchgoers and real Christians.
Rosa was a great mom, a hard worker, and as good a friend as she could be, considering our inability to communicate verbally. But those things didn’t make her a Christian. I’d grown increasingly concerned about her probable need for salvation and prayed for her many times daily. Although this reading of Lucas would surely touch her in some way, would it be enough?
I was less concerned about Anjelita—at least for now. I’d always been taught that children under a certain age would go to heaven if they died. If that was true and she died tonight, she would awaken in Jesus’ arms. After the first ten million years of warming in His love and acceptance, she might take her eyes off His face long enough to glance down and find her arm whole—perhaps for the first time ever.
But I had another reason for being less concerned about Anjelita.
Rosa was a super mom. Anjelita adored her and tried to be just like her. If Rosa became a believer, she would undoubtedly try to win Anjelita, too. Anjelita’s decision would be her own, though. She was too independent to do something that important just to please Rosa.
That didn’t answer the main question, though. If Rosa was not a Christian already, would she become one? Although she’d heard parts of Lucas and served as the best of my tutors, I was skeptical about finishing in the time I had left.
Even if I completed Lucas, Anjelita would be the only villager who’d heard it all the way through. No matter how intelligent she was, I couldn’t imagine her being able to fill the villagers in on everything they’d missed.
If I didn’t finish—if the villagers didn’t get to hear about the joyous Easter resurrection and the ascension—what would Luke’s Gospel accomplish?
Lord, please help me finish.
I would go as fast as my tutors allowed, of course, but I had to cover more material than I had during the first day and a half. The solution was simple. I’d started earlier and stayed later at the House of Bread to get more done.
I would do the same thing here.
chapter fifty-four
Day 12
God solved that problem in an even better way than I’d hoped. After another good night of sleep, I experienced a major breakthrough. Although my tutors couldn’t teach me the rules of pronunciation, my God-given flair for languages helped me discern, formulate, and apply my own rules, and they turned out to be remarkably accurate. My weak flicker raged almost instantly into an unstoppable fire.
The villagers corrected me only when they couldn’t understand me. That didn’t happen often now.
Now that my reading wasn’t constant stop-and-start, the villagers—entranced by Luke’s story of Jesus—seemed reluctant to return to work. Judging by the timing of their coming and going, they purposely waited for logical breaks in the narrative before leaving. Even then, they tended to back away as if trying to catch a few words of the next section before they got out of earshot.
At lunchtime that day, Aleesha pointed out something I hadn’t noticed. An ever-widening circle of villagers had been gathering just outside my peripheral vision and listening intently for longer and longer periods. That news perked me up.
Some of my little congregation remained outside for hours at a time, either forgetting to go inside the Passover Church for water or perhaps fearing they’d miss hearing something important in the few seconds they would need to get snacks and water. So I asked Rob and Charlie to set some water outside. It wouldn’t sit in the sun long enoug
h to superheat.
Whenever new listeners showed up, I heard whispering, but it was very quiet. They apparently wanted to learn what I was reading about at the moment. I never heard talking at any other time.
Their level of interest remained amazingly high, yet I fought a constant battle against frustration. God’s Word wouldn’t return to Him void. I believed that. My reading—no, not that, but the Word itself—would have a positive effect. But would I ever know the outcome?
If I was honest with myself, I didn’t want God’s Word to return to me void, either. Even though I couldn’t imagine Him working any miracles through me, I daydreamed about every villager becoming a Christian. And then I fretted about who would disciple them.
“Guys and girls,” Charlie said to the team during supper that night, “God is doing something special through Kim’s Bible reading. Be patient about the length and frequency of the villagers’ breaks.”
“No problem about that, Charlie.” Judging by the nods of affirmation, Geoff spoke for everyone. “Listening to God’s Word is the most important thing the villagers can do now. We need to keep Kimmy’s project in our constant prayers.” He concluded by setting a powerful example, and a fervent group prayer time followed.
The old “Hi, Kimmy. How’s the arm?” greeting went into immediate disuse. Team members now asked, “What specific things should we pray about tonight?”
So I wasn’t surprised to see dozens of teens sitting outside the mess tent or in the churchyard that night. Some were reading their Bibles in preparation for prayer, while others already had their eyes closed. They were serious about their commitment to pray.
Although each team member had a slightly different take on my reading, they agreed that God had brought me to Santa María as a seed sower. A number of them pointed out that the planter doesn’t always participate in the harvest. How often had I heard that in sermons and Bible studies without appreciating its significance?
A seed sower? I know that’s important, Lord. Someone must do it. Otherwise, there’ll be no harvest. But can’t I at least see Rosa come to You?
