by Roger Bruner
I hoped we’d been good—no, not just good, but effective—ambassadors for God.
Anjelita sang, too. I didn’t pay attention to her singing at first, but she got louder on every repetition. Then I recognized her words.
I’d read her some additional Bible verses the previous afternoon after finishing Luke. While I continued reading for practice, she must have memorized them.
I couldn’t have fit John 3:16 to “Joyful, Joyful” without making it sound awkward and contrived, but she could and she had. She sang as if she thought those words were the most important ones in the world. How I hoped and prayed …
“Porque de tal manera amó Dios al mundo, que ha dado á su Hijo unigénito, para que todo aquel que en él cree, no se pierda, mas tenga vida eterna.”
Yes, she sang as if that verse meant the world to her. Was this God’s way of answering my faithless concerns?
chapter fifty-nine
The next hour was a blur.
Although the buses were forty-five minutes late, the drivers started loading our suitcases within minutes of their arrival. Cheers arose from the first team members who ran from bus to bus to bus to confirm that each one contained the tiny facilities we longed for after two weeks without. But a number of us chose to return to the far side of the fields one last time rather than compete for the bus facilities.
Walking through the deserted campsite gave me a feeling of empty finality nothing had prepared me for. I’d be gone—we’d all be gone—in a few minutes, and that was it.
What had taken Rob two and three-quarter hours to drive after I broke my arm might take these professional drivers a full four hours or more. But at least the semi that led the parade of buses into the village and the smaller truck that contained fresh-off-the-farm-smelling livestock had probably smoothed the ruts even more.
The villagers would have to spend much of the day helping unload and store or distribute the supplies the semi brought. Maybe a day of physical activity would keep them from dwelling on our absence. I hoped they’d let Anjelita and the other kids help, too. They were hard workers.
I giggled at the thought of the children’s reaction to the goats and chickens. If these children were typical, they’d soon make pets of them while the adults viewed them as either a long-lasting source of milk and eggs or a short-lived source of meat and poultry. I wouldn’t want to be around when the adults had to calm their children after butchering and eating one of their pets.
Then again, maybe the animals just needed the friendship of a miraculous, web-weaving Mexican spider—what would her name be? Carlotta?—that would save their lives by weaving a message in the web above their pen: STUPENDOUS ANIMALS. DO NOT EAT.
I’d overheard someone say that the villagers were going to store seeds, tools, and other supplies in the church building. They may not have thought of the old building as a church, but I still hoped it wasn’t true.
Please, Lord, don’t let them use Passover Church as a barn for the animals.
Then I sensed that still, small voice saying, Mary gave birth to My baby boy in a stable. If the villagers want to use My future house as a stable or a storage shed, I don’t have any problems with it.
He was right, of course. The church hadn’t become a place of worship. I’d expected miracles—I’d hoped and prayed for them—but Jesus didn’t do miracles on demand, not even during His so-called trial when a miracle might have saved His earthly life. I reluctantly admitted I wouldn’t want one unless it was God’s will.
I’d been prayerfully considering what one last thing I could do for Rosa and Anjelita—for the whole village, really. The answer was obvious. Taking my Spanish-only Bible home again wouldn’t benefit anyone, but leaving it in Santa María might have eternal significance.
Rosa, Anjelita, and I sat on the plywood floor inside their cottage while the drivers, Rob, and Charlie finished loading the buses. When I asked Rob and Charlie to be patient if I boarded last, they stared at me, struggling to keep a straight face. They couldn’t keep their eyes from twinkling, though.
They gave up trying to contain their laughter when I promised not to be more than three hours late getting on the bus, and they cracked up big-time when I told them what to do if they got tired of waiting.
“Guys, you have my permission to pick me up bodily and shove me headfirst into my seat without any pretense of patience or dignity. As long as you promise not to fight over the privilege, that is.”
If Anjelita had still been acting the way she did last night, they might have needed to do that. Fortunately, her extra-long night’s sleep seemed to restore her sense of reason. Or maybe it just helped her to accept the inevitable without freaking out.
Rosa stared at the Santa Biblia on my lap. If the look of reverence and longing on her face was any indication, she didn’t have any idea why I’d brought it with me. I’d planned to wait until the last minute to present it to her. Maybe it would help distract Anjelita when I made my getaway.
Sunlight coming through the open door made Anjelita’s necklace shine more brilliantly than ever. I wondered if she’d polished it with some type of plant juice. She held the prism up to the sun every couple of minutes and projected a rainbow on my cast. We smiled at one another as if we weren’t both bawling our eyes out on the inside.
She started fidgeting like someone who’s struggling over a decision. I’d forgotten that even little kids sometimes face adult-sized issues. I couldn’t imagine what was on her mind, though.
But she’d already made her decision, and I never would have dreamed how important it was. She, too, had a gift. She took off the necklace and kissed it as if saying good-bye to it. She looked at it and put it to her mouth again. Her lips moved slightly. She appeared to be whispering a secret to her most prized possession.
Then she put it over my head and let it fall around my neck.
She smiled the sweetest smile while waiting for my reaction, but I was too shocked to respond appropriately. Misreading my look—it must have been one of muddled confusion—Anjelita’s smile faded and her mood darkened visibly.
Could Anjelita be having second thoughts about giving her precious necklace to a big sister she’s known only a couple of weeks? Or changing her mind about doing it without her mother’s permission?
With the best of intentions, I took it off and put it back on Anjelita. She buried her face in her mom’s shoulder and sobbed as pathetically as if she were in intense pain. Apparently I’d done the wrong thing, but what would make things right again?
Voices outside called my name. Time was up. The bus was waiting, and I had to do something—the right something—within the next few seconds.
Afraid I’d forget to present my gift to Rosa when I rushed out, I placed the Bible on her lap. It seemed to shock her as much as Anjelita’s present had shocked me. She picked the Santa Biblia up, looked at it adoringly, and caressed it as if it were covered with fine leather and not paper.
But then she put it back on my lap. The tears in her eyes told me how much that Bible meant to her and how much she wanted to accept it, but that didn’t calm the sinking feeling in my stomach.
That’s when I understood how I’d made Anjelita feel and how to correct my mistake.
I touched Anjelita’s shoulder to get her attention—she’d quit crying when she saw me present the Bible to Rosa—and I motioned for her to hand me the necklace. She placed it around my neck, and this time I said, “Muchas gracias” and kissed her face several times.
“Kimmy Hartlinger, we’re coming in to get you ….”
I looked at Rosa. I knew what would happen. What had to happen. She motioned for me to hand her the Bible.
I did so with tears of joy.
This time she kissed it and clung to it like a drowning woman hanging on to a piece of boat wreckage. I jumped up from the floor—I’d improved at doing that—and boarded the bus before Anjelita noticed me walk out. Her eyes were on her mother’s slightly used Santa Biblia.
I looked back from the door of the bus and heard her voice, weakened by so much early morning singing, “Señorita Kim, te amo.” She repeated it many times. I was almost positive it meant “Miss Kim, I love you.” What else would it have meant?
I responded only once. “Te amo, Anjelita. Te amo, Rosa.” Then I broke down completely.
chapter sixty
I was silent as the journey began. Everyone was. Although fatigue and soft, comfortable seats had already put many of the team to sleep, I was lost in my own little world, barely conscious of my surroundings.
With Aleesha in the aisle seat and Neil beside the window, I felt like a thin-cut slice of deli turkey between two mismatched pieces of bread—one wheat, one white. The three of us fit comfortably in the two-seat row.
Maybe Aleesha was right about Neil and me being skinny. Although the temperature inside the bus was already comfortable, our driver cranked the AC down past frigid. Maybe he was trying to punish us for making him drive through the darkest part of the night to reach the ends of the earth. But at least he wasn’t the lead driver we’d had on the drive to Santa María.
My ears and nose got cold first. Although the grungy travel slacks covered my legs, the hole in the knee allowed a cold draft to streak all the way to my feet. I had more goose bumps on my arms than other people had freckles. Neil, Aleesha, and I scooted close enough together to warm our arms some. I was thankful to be the meat in the middle.
Neil still hadn’t invaded my mental space with his confession. I was glad. I couldn’t deal with it yet. Too many other things were on my mind.
Not even my vivid memories of the recent gift exchange could keep me awake long, though. The last thing I remembered before dropping off was Aleesha examining my new jewelry and saying “Cool!” Not once, but twice. I didn’t realize she’d never seen it up close.
Although I slept less than an hour, my nap was refreshing. Other team members were waking up, too, and I heard the slight buzz of conversations here and there.
I turned to my left. Neil was looking at me. At least he didn’t have that sick puppy dog look of a guy who’s falling for a girl. I would have hated deflating such a sweet sixteen-year-old boy’s ego, especially since age and social immaturity were his only real shortcomings. Plus his small frame.
He’d outgrow the first two. Only time would tell if he could outgrow his scrawniness.
Ah, but he already had a girlfriend back home. And I’d worked so hard to assure him our age difference wasn’t important.
The dizzy, whirling effect of those thoughts made me giggle once. Socially immature? As punchy as I was at the moment, maybe I was describing myself. I giggled again.
“If you’re sufficiently awake, Kimmy, may we converse now?”
After the day’s emotional free fall, our talk could only lighten the journey. Neil seemed a bit braver about addressing me now.
“Sure, Neil. You start.”
His bravery suddenly turned to sloppy, melting gelatinness that looked like it might run over and under the seats and made me instinctively lean toward Aleesha. I waited for him to throw up, but he didn’t. I turned to face him again.
“Go on, Neil. I’m not going to bite.”
He brightened a little and opened his mouth. He remained silent for a moment and then closed his mouth again. He must have been searching for the proper starting point.
But bigmouth me had to say something cute. I must be a direct descendant of Simon Peter, even without being any percent Jewish. “I bite very seldom, anyhow.”
He turned pale. I had him pinned against the window. He couldn’t escape, and he knew it. He swallowed hard and opened his mouth again, but nothing came out.
“Neil, I’m sorry. I was just teasing ….”
He smiled. But ever so slightly. “Oh, I know that,” he managed to say. But he said it in that defensive male tone of voice that means “Really? You could’ve fooled me, you witch.”
I’d made things bad enough for the poor kid, so I shut up and waited for him to say something. I’d keep waiting, too, whether it took five seconds, five minutes, or five hours for him to regain the courage to talk to me.
“Kimmy,” he said about twenty minutes later, “have you ever done something you felt God really wanted you to do?”
You were terrified to ask that, Neil? And what does it have to do with a confession, anyhow? I resisted the temptation to say that to him, though. I was nice. “I just spent a week of my life reading the Gospel of Luke aloud in a language I can’t speak. I wouldn’t have done it if God hadn’t convinced me to.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Okay. Kimmy, have you ever abstained from doing something—something really good—because God didn’t want you to?”
Huh? “Abstained from …? I don’t think so.”
If God had closed the door on this mission trip, I could have answered yes. But He’d left it open. I started to ask Neil why, but voiced a gentler, “Have you?” instead.
“That’s what I need to confess. I’ve been terrified to tell you how much I could have assisted you this past week. I wanted to help, but God wouldn’t let me. I prayed about it. Hard. I wrestled with God nightly, but He kept saying no.” Neil looked so sincere. So intent on saying things correctly—the best way possible.
“I wasn’t afraid to help you,” he added as if I might misunderstand his motivation, “and I wasn’t lazy or unconcerned.”
“First, I can’t think of any way you could have helped me this week. Second, why should I get upset about God telling you no?”
He began explaining. The further he went, the more I ground my teeth and regretted assuring him I didn’t bite. Every word he said made me angrier. Poor Neil must’ve felt more defenseless than ever in that position by the window with no means of escape. In fact, he looked so terrified I thought he might prefer to jump through the window of a moving bus rather than remain where I could reach over and wring his scrawny neck.
I’d successfully curbed my swearing during the past two weeks, but right now I found myself under the influence of one of those hateful attitudes that’s just as sinful as cursing.
“Kim, I feel awful. Please say something.”
Before I could respond the way I wanted to, the peace of God flowed through my head and heart, and the negative words I’d planned to say stuck in my throat. God’s love was more powerful than my human anger.
“That’s okay, Neil. I understand.” Huh? Did I really say that? Things aren’t one bit okay; yet they are, and I don’t understand why. Although I’d let God speak for me, my feelings needed to catch up with my words.
“But how can you, Kimmy? I could have taught you everything you needed to know. I could have translated your testimony. I could have taught you the rules of pronunciation before you started reading.”
I breathed a silent prayer before responding. I needed to say the right thing. “I think I know why God wouldn’t let you help. He wanted me to rely totally on Him. Accepting your Spanish expertise would’ve kept me from doing that. Then, too, the villagers wouldn’t have gotten so caught up in the reading if I hadn’t needed their tutoring.”
He nodded, and I smiled about making such good sense to a boy genius. “But didn’t God want you to use your Spanish at all? Charlie and Rob must have had a rough time not knowing they had a capable translator in their midst.” I hadn’t meant to accuse him of negligence, but I expressed my curiosity badly.
“Kimmy, maybe you’ve noticed I don’t fit in well among so many eighteen-year-olds?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Team members had accepted Neil on the surface—he was a well-motivated, hard-working, functional part of the team—but how many people had tried relating to him on a personal level? Who’d really tried getting to know him?
I hadn’t.
“I was afraid I’d sound like a show-off if I admitted publicly how good I am in Spanish. If I sound boastful telling you about my expertise, how would the others have taken it?”
“Good point, but—”
“I explained everything to Rob and Charlie after the first morning’s meeting. No matter how desperate they were for a translator, they understood and respected my dilemma. I helped assign the villagers to teams and offered to help in other strategic ways. They encouraged the villagers to help them guard my secret.”
“And to think Anjelita almost married us off without me knowing how talented you are.”
“Bravo.” He chuckled. “Haven’t you wondered why Anjelita gave up so easily after our lone evening of being sweethearts?”
“Many times.”
“I had a little heart-to-heart with Rosa and Anjelita. I explained that we both had sweethearts back home and didn’t want to be disloyal to them. I do, you recall, and I’ll bet you have a boyfriend at home yourself. Probably a lot of them.”
“Duh!” I thumped myself in the head. What a great solution.
“Sounds like a ripe watermelon to me,” Neil said, egging me on. He was growing bolder with his elder now, and I loved it. I’d never realized he could be this much fun.
We laughed together, and I heard a little snicker from Aleesha.
We rode in silence for a few minutes.
“Kim, uh, Kimmy. I’m sorry, but I like ‘Kim’ better. I hope you don’t mind ….”
He was so cute. If he’d been a puppy or a kitten, I would’ve tried taking him home with me. Mom and Dad, this is my new pet kid, Neil. He doesn’t eat much, and he’s already housebroken. He can sleep on the floor in the basement, and I promise to take good care of him. You’ll barely know he’s around. He’ll be too busy memorizing every book in the public library and doing post-doctoral studies while completing his first year of college.
“You and Aleesha!” I winked at him. “Me, too.” I looked around to make sure Rob wasn’t nearby, but he must have been on another bus this time. “I didn’t want to admit I disliked the nickname Kimmy. I was afraid of losing some much-needed goodwill.”
