I have done hard things this week.
On our first work day, I sawed through tons of rebar (that is steel, my friends) and mixed bag after bag of concrete by hand with a shovel. On our second day, while ankle-deep in water, I crouched for over an hour while plastering the inside of our cinderblock structure. I lugged bucket after bucket of sand, filled block after block with cement, and all under the relentless El Salvadoran sun.
But none of these hard things compare to the difficulty of what I did yesterday:
Yesterday, I said goodbye to Nayeli.
The first thing I noticed about Nayeli was her dimples. Beautiful, beautiful caverns in her brown cheeks, deep and cradling a smile that seemed to hold all of life's secrets. This probably sounds strange, but her dimples surprised me, as if somehow I just didn't realize that the El Salvadorans, so foreign to me, could have anything so simple as dimples in common with us Americans. But they do. And they have so much more. In fact, the similarities far outweigh the differences.
So, it didn't take long for Nayeli to open up to us. She is spirited, she is brilliant, she is joyful, she is sassy, she is so ready to love and be loved. I really can't explain it, but this little 8-year-old girl stole my heart. Love is such a powerful thing. It just sweeps over you. Hardly two and a half days was all it took for the Lord to fill me with a love so great for this girl that saying goodbye to her this morning tore me to pieces and brought me to tears.
Nayeli is forever a part of me, a part of my heart.
An El Salvadoran teenager we encountered while playing soccer yesterday afternoon said something that caught my attention. In reference to the English language, he said:
No puedo hablarlo, pero puedo entenderlo.
I can't speak it, but I can understand it.
It's true. As for speaking, Nayeli and I could barely speak more than two words to each other at a time, but honestly, it didn't matter. Because we understood each other perfectly. You don't need words. Anyone can understand giggles and holding hands and hugs and making farting noises and playing "hot potato."
Dimples are universal.
Love itself is a language that transcends all difference.
The Unbound staff told us a story about a very grateful elderly El Salvadoran man who told a sponsor who was visiting from another country, "Thank you for everything you do. Heaven is waiting for you." The sponsor replied to the elderly man, "You are my heaven."
In El Salvador, I have found the kingdom of heaven on earth. An endless, colorful collage of tarps and tattered cloths form holy tabernacles in which the Savior, El Salvador Himself, dwells in the souls of the people. Here, His Sacred Heart beats to the rhythm of the rain tinkling on the tin rooftops.
Nayeli is my heaven. She is Christ, El Salvador, to me.
I held her tight one last time, kissed her head, and said some of the only Spanish I know:
Te amo.
I love you.
She replied,
Yo tambien.
I love you, too.
And where there is love, what else is there to be said?
Marie Brinkman
titsay
origamiaround
prguitarman
yousharknotpass
stormborns
