Great day! only two weeks left...

Today was definitely my favorite day of my entire time here, it was sort of the culmination of the learning I have learned and done so far in my time in Latin America. As I have mentioned previously, my timing to come here to Colombia couldn’t have been more perfect. I literally arrived the week that ADIN (Spanish acronym for the Association for Holistic Development) lost their second employee and thus stepped right into a position where the organization was in need of another worker. Often I have felt in my ministries over the past two years that I wasn’t really needed and often to be honest I wasn’t. I have been happy to be a learner, to be a fly on the wall, to submit to local leadership and to understand that I was a short term guest and here to learn and serve, if that meant just watching I would watch, if that meant helping I would help. Here in Colombia I have been fortunate to be able to fulfill a job and a need. Often when foreigners come, especially for a short term there isn’t a certainty as to where to put the person or how to keep them busy. At times I have felt like I was a third wheel and while my learning was useful for me I often felt like I had minimal tangible help for the ministry other than another body.
Here in Colombia I have actually filled an important need for an organization and been able to jump in rather quickly to become a “field worker” (loan counselor, loan assessor, teacher). It has felt good to feel needed and to be able to do something that at least is related to what I studied in college. I think too I can see all the progress I have made in my Spanish and in my cultural understanding of Latin America. Four years ago I set out on a journey to Mexico for what at the time seemed like an infinitely long two months, scared to death of a new language and people. Very much stuck in my middle class US bubble, nervous and excited to shatter the bubble and learn about the world. Four years later I have certainly done some serious damage to the bubble, I have in many ways become very Latino, or better said bicultural. I will never stop being a North American, I will always have my college degree and passport that open doors for me, but I have also become very Latin American. I take bucket baths here in Colombia without a second thought; I flush my toilet by throwing a bucket of water in it and find that to be normal. I eat brains, liver, heart or any other body part with a smile (at least on the outside), I comfortably ride all sorts of public transportation in various places and most importantly have learned how to relate to people of all backgrounds and social classes.
I can go into an internet café and speak to a few of the other customers in Spanish, call my girlfriend and speak Portuguese and then switch back to Spanish with some people before speaking in English to someone in my family. I say all this not to sound like I’m such a great person or anything, but I’m excited that I feel like I am finally not a baby in my cultural understanding, now that I’m four years old I’m starting to say some words and get the hang of how this life thing works.
To get back to how today was my favorite day in Colombia this afternoon I went to this little town called Los Palmitos about a 45 minutes less than a dollar bus ride away from the town I live in. I could buy a house there for like $2000 or rent one for about $35/month. I have spent a lot of time there recently working with our various groups there and had to go there today to collect money and to give a few training sessions. The first group I taught a few things about how to put together a basic financial report and stressed the importance of accounting and budgeting and was excited to hear about people’s small businesses and to actually be able to help them with some basic business knowledge. The second training session was with a group that just started with us and is so excited to have a loan from us that they can’t get the smiles off their faces. They are so conscientious about their payments and about showing up and so eager to learn. Today we talked about the vicious cycle of poverty and how we hoped that ADIN’s combination of a loan, training sessions and business appraisal/ consulting would help them break the chains of the cycle and be able to sustain their families better. Many of these people have been affected by the civil war and to hear them talk about the poverty cycle was moving. At one point I asked them if they understood the diagram about how the vicious cycle of poverty worked and then realized the foolishness of the question and my own ignorance. It was they who understood and I who stood to learn from listening to them talk about their experiences. Talk about failed government and other intervention efforts (among them the USAID, the US international development organization) that didn’t have any lasting affect and didn’t seem to care about them as individuals. I shared with them my passion for God and how God has a passion and love for his people and doesn’t want to see them starve and wants to provide for them. We finished the lesson and after answering some business questions two of the guys from the bank maybe in their late 30’s walked me to the highway to wait for my bus and we talked about Brasil (and my girlfriend), my time in Mexico and Colombia and what I wanted with my future. I realized what a gift it was to be able to share with them my life and my experiences and knowledge and for them to be able to share those very same things with me. Although we come from very different backgrounds and experiences I think we both learned from each other today and left better for it and closer to God too. I thank God for moments like today. Simple joys, simple joys of seeing a twinkle in someone’s eye that there is hope for them to have a job and support themselves and that there is a God who loves them and wants to take care of them.
I realized during our meeting as they chatted about their own stories, struggles and triumphs I was so privileged to listen to that conversation, to have their confianza (trust). I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, but I know that God wants us, that Jesus led us by example to be incarnational, to live with and among our brothers and sisters. I have had an interest in economic development for a while, in using business to help people, but always felt like it didn’t work right because most international aid is to make the rich country donors feel good about themselves, to give away money and feel good that they helped some poor person. I didn’t feel that way today, I felt like I had the privilege to get to know the people I work with, I don’t see them as some poor person, but as a friend and a brother. I still don’t know how God will use me, I know that I have been blessed in so many ways and given so much. I recognize how privileged I am and often struggle with that, but I pray that God might use me to show his love to people, to be salt and light, to reflect the hope that Jesus brings and to be able to work for holistic development of the body, mind and soul.
As the bus approached we wrapped up our conversation and they told me to keep in touch so maybe one day they could visit me in México, Brasil or the US. As I got on the bus, my stomach dropped and a tear welled up in my eye to know that I would most likely never see them again, but to know that I carry their story in my heart and that they aren’t just some poor people that make $4/day but they are people I care about and know. I praise God for the little that he has allowed me to do here in Colombia to serve people and at the same time learn from them. Thank you all for helping make that possible.