I have two big stories to tell. One is the terrifying tale of why I'm not allowed to go running any more. The second is about how incredibly my parents are.
First:
On Saturday (Halloween), Tom decided to go for a little run at around 4 in the afternoon (bright daylight). On his way back home, a car pulled up and four men jumped out in halloween masks. One had a gun hidden by a sweatshirt and he dug it into Tom's side, forcing him into the car. They blindfolded him and drove him for 15 or 20 min, punching him in the ribs with their fists and the gun the entire time. Finally they stopped and shoved him out onto the sidewalk -- at this point all Tom could imagine was a dark alley and the fact that they had a weapon in their hand. Luckily though they drove off (not before stealing the few thousand colones Tom had in his backpocket), leaving Tom in a part of town that he had never seen with no money for a taxi ride home. In his broken Spanish, he asked people on the streets where Parque Chino was (a park near his house) and followed the general direction of their pointing fingers. After an hour and a half of that, he was at my front door, white as a sheet. I asked what had happened. "I just got kidnapped," he said.
Second:
I am so fortunate to have parents who have come before me and done this -- they understand my struggles, my concerns, and those feelings that can't be written in words. This week my mom sent me a copy of her blog from November when she was here six years ago. It pretty much sums up where I'm at (and also plunged me into a pensieve of forgotten memories).
November 24th - Val
Love deeply. Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply…as you love deeply, the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.
Henry Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love
“…fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
from Romans 12, The Message
It is late November, but to me it does not feel like November. I haven’t seen leaves falling off the trees or gathered windfall apples for applesauce. I haven’t seen the first snows on the Cascade foothills nor watched the water pound the beach in a November gale. Jeff can’t believe it’s November either. As he put it, “It just feels like one long summer.” But, the calendar says it’s November, so I have to believe it is.
Just as I can’t believe it is late November, I’m finding it difficult to believe my heart will “rejoice in the abundance of fruit it will bear” as it is broken by loving deeply, as Henry Nouwen so eloquently put it. I’m struggling to respond to what God wants from me. I don’t see the best being brought out in me and “well-formed maturity” sounds more foreign than Spanish. I guess I’m having a difficult week…make that month.
This month has been a rollercoaster kind of month. The catalyst for the rollercoaster has been home visits. This month I have twice visited the homes off four lovely young women, Carolina (14), her sister Cristabel (12), Grethel (15) and Mileidy (12) whom I have come to know well. They are very faithful members of Monday volleyball (called, Chicas Bonitas) and are also very active in all of the classes offered in the Refuge where I help on Wednesdays and Saturdays. You can see their photos on the Nuevos Horizontes section of our website. Their homes are humble at best. They live off of the main street of La Carpio—to get to Carolina’s home you descend a steep, dirt and rock “street,” cross a narrow garbage swollen stream on a make shift bridge of planks, and descend further down a narrow path. Every square inch that is not dirt, rocks and garbage has casas built practically on top of each other. With so many sheet metal, cement block, or wooden homes it is very easy to believe there are at least 35,000 people living in La Carpio. Inside, lights and furniture are sparse. The smells of cooking are delicious—they can work wonders with rice, a little chicken and the right spices. The crafts the girls make in their classes are the home décor. Carolinas parents both work 5-6 days a week, 10-12 hour days so I was fortunate to meet them.
The day after my first visit to the girls’ homes, Jeff and I were reading the religion section of the Skagit Valley herald on-line. I found myself raging at the “gospel of entertainment” that is so prevalent in all sectors, including the church, of the U.S. Our entertainments have a numbing effect which prevent us from feeling true despair or true joy. At the school our kids attend there is discussion and concern over the Harry Potter books. This is not to discount the discernment of concerned parents, but Carolina’s parents work over 70 hours a week and live in squalor. That is the result of evil—and yet it is an evil the Christian community is not particularly enraged by. I may feel pity, but not concern enough to take action to change things because I might have to change. All I had seen the day before, the time I have spent with the girls, it all came to the surface and I had no entertainment to numb me, no meetings I had to go to, nothing to distract or erase what I had seen—all I could do was cry. There were tears of missing my friends and family, tears of frustration at feeling so incompetent with the language, and tears of rage at the incredible injustice of life in La Carpio. There was shame for having so very much and still finding ample reasons to complain. I suddenly wished I had never even thought of coming to Costa Rica. I wished I had never seen La Carpio, had never read the prophets in the Old Testament or the Sermon on the Mount. I wanted to erase it all.
So, that was a downhill on the rollercoaster….A few weeks later, Jeff and the boys spent the night at some friends so Hannah and I could host a slumber party with Carolina, Cristobel, Mileidy, and Grethel. I also invited two new volunteers, Ali, a recent college graduate from Colorado and Kristen, another recent college graduate from Atlanta (and yes, I had moments of feeling old!) to join in the fun. The walk that I make on an almost daily basis through downtown San Jose was new again as these girls who seldom leave La Carpio held hands and looked at the Christmas decorations in honest-to-goodness wonder. On the bus they laughed and were so excited, it was impossible to not think this was going to be one of the greatest nights ever.
We (the leaders) kicked them out of the kitchen telling them that this was a night for them to rest, we would do the work. After dinner they did something I had not fully expected—they played legos. They LOVE legos and each girl made herself a lovely little house. While they played legos, the grown-ups made cookies. I got out the video camera and taped them singing, dancing, introducing themselves and telling about their lego houses. Jeff had borrowed a television from some friends so we were able to immediately show them the video which they absolutely loved. As the night progressed we played games and wrote letters to another volunteer who had recently left. Late in the night we decided to make the girls hot cocoa. As we were making it, Kristen commented that this evening was like a facial and manicure for the girls. We wanted so much to wait on them and let them be kids for just one night.
Around midnight, we moved all the mattresses that would fit into one room and snuggled in together. There wasn’t room for one person, so I was given the gift of sleeping in my own bed (one of the advantages of being the oldest). Finally, around 12:30 the lights were out. At 5:20 (yes, less than 5 hours later) I heard rustling. Cristobel peaked in my room and gave me a huge hug. Soon Ali appeared and I invited her to talk as Cristobel left. We had been talking for about 20 minutes (I believe discussing the merits of coffee) when Kristen joined us and asked if I knew what the girls were up to. I had heard them and figured they were talking, playing more legos, etc. No, the girls were cleaning the house. By the time I got up, every room had been swept, the dishes put away, every mattress back in place, beds made. Every last lego picked up and put in the box.
We all went to church together where Ali and I sang. Since we had to practice, the girls all learned the song. The words are very simple and honest. Translated it says something to the effect of “Every morning I get up, and every night I rest, thankful for all of Your (God) goodness in my life; for all I am permitted to enjoy.” Jeff and I accompanied the girls home Sunday afternoon, and as the bus entered La Carpio in the twilight of evening, four lovely voices on the bus were singing, “Cada mañana despertar, y por la noche descansar, agradezco tus bondades a mi vida por todo lo que me permites disfrutar…” The people on the bus turned and smiled. How could you not sense the holiness of entering La Carpio with a psalm of thanksgiving rising over the rumble of a diesel engine?
It was an act of gratitude, an experience of true joy, I will never forget.
Jeff and I walked each girl to her home, greeted parents and gave hugs goodbye. Then we went to dinner as I tried to bring together the experience that in some ways left me feeling so disjointed. I do not want to romanticize poverty, nor do I want to aggrandize the good life. So, where did the roller coaster take me? It took me to our computer where I found myself looking at photos of our home in Anacortes. I suddenly longed to be home. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to spend one more minute lamenting over the poverty of La Carpio, the guilt of our wealth, my inadequacies,—I didn’t want to think or feel one bit! Two hours prior I was in a place of tremendous thanksgiving, singing on the bus….
In hind sight, that reaction has since reminded me of when Luke broke his arm. It was less then 5 minutes after his fall, I had him in the car and was going to drive him to the doctor. I asked him how he was and he kept saying over and over, “Mommy, I just want to go to sleep. Can’t I just go to sleep?” I’ve had enough first aid classes to recognize that as a preliminary sign of shock. Perhaps that’s what this month has been—emotional, spiritual shock. I just want to sit in my little room with this little computer and look at digital photos of my house, my family, my little corner of the world and not experience any more heart break. I suddenly don’t want to be “changed from the inside out” because, well, it hurts. I’d prefer to not love deeply—a little, shallow pat on the back sounds good.
So this is where I will leave off. Unresolved, unfinished, unsure of a lot of things—even the month! The calendar says it is November, and I have to believe it no matter how unnatural it feels. Isn’t that the life of faith?
--Hannah/Val
PS One last quote my beloved mother sent me:
“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”
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