From outside I could hear the muffled voices of the elderly couple as they shared with the mission team members inside their home. Their home, nearly one hundred years old, was constructed using a method called bahareque- sticks for the frame, and the walls made of a mud mixture that, when hardened, becomes extremely solid and durable.
After nearly a century, the wear and tear of the years was evident- walls bowing underneath the terracotta shingles, pieces of the dried mud mixture beginning to flake away. The couple’s daughter, now their sole caretaker, shared with the team about the difficulty of their day-to-day life. Her three brothers moved to the U.S. many years ago; with the promise of better pay, the hope was that the brothers would send money to help support the family. However, that never happened, and the daughter was left with the full responsibility of taking care of herself and her aging parents. For a while they were able to get by, but a knee injury significantly challenged her ability to care for the family’s land, and her parents.
The mission team shared with the family about the significance of the food bag they were delivering; would it sustain their family for a while? Yes! Would it last forever? Definitely not. But there is a man named Jesus, who called himself the bread of life, and He came to make us whole- to satisfy us in ways that food will never be able to.
The daughter and her parents nodded in eager agreement, and asked the team if they would sing a song. The group of college students from Colorado had learned a few songs in Spanish that they had been singing all week during VBS, and quickly decided on one to share with the family- turns out, they knew the song too! Gathered together, shoulder to shoulder in the small living room, the students worshiped God with three people they had just met. When the song was over, the matriarch of the family expressed her gratitude, not only for the bag of food and the visit, but for the team taking the time to share that moment with them.
Many times, we think we need something extravagant, tangible, or grand to leave a genuine impact in someone’s day, and while that form of service is important and has a time and place, we should never underestimate how God can move through the “ordinary”. Often, something as simple as a taking a moment to ask someone how they’re really doing, hear their story, or even share a song with them can lighten their load and leave a lasting impact.
