Visitas

It’s been too long. Sorry, friends. Last week the wifi we use here in Magdalena was down for the majority of the week, in all the locations we can use it, and then we took off for the weekend to a very beautiful place on the Pacific Ocean, but again, without wifi. Eh, there’s worse things in the world than being on a beach with dear friends, and not having access to the interwebs. But now I am back, refreshed, and ready to tackle my last week of ministry sites before going to Antigua for a week of language school. (Wait, what? Last week?? That can’t be right…) (Actually…that’s a lie. The wifi has been out much longer, I wrote this in anticipation of it coming back, and now I’m actually in Antigua. Pretend this is a few weeks ago...)

The last few days and weeks have been busy, but don’t worry. I’m not going to share every single detail of what we’ve done, also because it’s not possible to. We had our second group of the summer over the last two weeks, two groups of mostly high schoolers from California. I had two girls at my site, and while they understood some Spanish, I got to do a lot of interpreting for them! It was fun, and I was encouraged that even though my Spanish is not perfect, I am capable of sharing between two languages. We spent the majority of the last two weeks doing home visits of prestatarios (borrowers from the loan program, remember our last Spanish lesson?). Between the language barrier and the extremely difficult situations many of the prestatarios and their families live in, these home visits can be a challenge for the students, but because of my Spanish and the small connections I’ve already made with the prestatarios, I was able to facilitate the conversation so that my students could understand the majority of a prestatario’s story, and also so that the prestatario could understand the testimonies my students shared with them. It’s been encouraging for me to be able to use the skills and desires to communicate cross culturally that God gave me in college in a very real, and practical way. I don’t know what my future career or life will look like, but I know that it will involve communicating in two languages (at least!), because I know this has come from God.

Speaking of home visits…they are a huge part of what the microfinance site, and SI in general does. One of SI’s core values and a huge part of their mission is relational ministry. Yes, the occupational ministry is important (this being the physical work that is being done. In my site’s case, the loans offered and received, and the work to make businesses grow.), but just as much as SI wants to see a business grow, or a student learn how to make art to support themselves, or a woman learn skills that will help put food on the table, they want to see the people of this community growing and flourishing in a relationship with Christ. This is the relational ministry focus of SI. And for the majority of the sites, this means home visits. Since this is such a big part of what SI and what my site does (and since I spent the last two weeks visiting countless individuals/families) I want to share what home visits look like for my site, specifically, and share a few individual’s stories. Sharing stories of life is really the only way to know someone, and while you all can’t physically be here with me, you can join in praying for these dear individuals and the work that is happening here, because you have learned something about their lives and struggles, but also about their triumphs.

Like I said, home visits can be a struggle. You know that old game show where they have prizes behind different doors, and the contestant gets to pick one to find out what’s behind door #1, to see what they’ll be going home with? Home visits are kind of like that…only the situations behind the doors in Magdalena, El Gorrion, Buena Vista, or wherever we go are not so glamorous as the ones on the game show. But it’s true. You never really know what you will find behind a door, or piece of laminate (like a sheet of metal) that acts as a door, when you knock to be let into someone’s life. I mean this both in the sense that the house may be small, and dirty, and the American part of you wonders how anyone could live in these conditions, but I also mean that you never know the struggles someone is going through until they open the door and invite you in. And there are struggles in this community. Often times, our visits start with something to do with the loan: dropping off their libretas (little books they use to keep track of loan payments), taking pictures of what they’ve invested in (to make sure they are using their loan for what they said they would), or explaining that a prestatario can be making payments on the interest and not the capital until they are able to pay off the full loan (this is often how prestatarios who raise animals choose to repay, because they don’t actually have the money until they sell their animals, when they’re full grown, for food.). The loan talk opens the door for real talk. Sometimes people just need someone to talk to, and so a lot of home visits/relational ministry is listening. Sometimes we hear all the struggles that a family is going through, and sometimes those struggles affect how they are able to pay back their loans. Sometimes a woman will open up and share her whole life with us, struggles and triumphs, and sometimes we hear how that woman is turning to God, but sometimes we don’t hear any mention of God. To incorporate our American students into the conversation, we often ask them to share as much or as little of their testimony as they are willing to share, a Bible verse, or something God has been doing in their lives. Often times, God makes it so they end up sharing something extremely applicable to the prestatarios’ lives, even though they had no idea what’d they would find behind door #2, because He’s cool like that. Sometimes what I heard my students share allowed a prestatario to open up and share a similar struggle that otherwise may not have come up in conversation. And who knows how God will use these words in the future… we can only pray that our words are his words, because we know it is through him seeds grow to harvest. We end every home visit with prayer. We pray for the children, we pray for husbands or wives, we pray for good crops or healthy chickens, we pray for businesses to grow, and we pray, at every home, for each individual in the family to continue to search for and grow in God. Some households are already doing this, and we hope we can encourage them to continue. Other households are not turning to God, but we pray openly with them all the same, and in our hearts we pray they will find Him. Primero Dios (This is a phrase used ALL the time here; it translates to God first, but is used as we would say God willing.). As I said in a previous post, we care that their business is able to grow. But we care so much more that they grow in Christ.

I think God is using the relational ministry of SI to do some big things in this community. I’m not saying every prestatario is or will be a Christian because of our actions, but every one of them is exposed to the love of Christ. We hope and pray that our actions reflect His good and perfect love, that we can plant seeds of hope in people’s lives, and that as the work continues, God would cause those seeds to grow. It is a blessing to be a part of this ministry, for the short time that I am here. It is encouraging to know that the work will continue when I am no longer here, because God is infinite, and He is here, and He is at work.

I was going to share some specific stories, but I think that will have to wait for a different post, because this one is already getting long. Hang tight, dear friends.

This is really not the greatest picture of this family, but I have so few from home visits that I still wanted to share!