Remembering Ecuador

In a remote village in the mountains about an hour outside of Quito, Ecuador lives a 10 year old girl named Celina (right above). The only Jesus Celina ever knew was the one hanging on the cross in the Catholic cathedral in the nearest town, which her family only visited on very special occasions. She never saw a gringo except perhaps on TV, and we all know about the gringos we see on TV.

One day some gringos came to her village. They spoke through a translator, telling them Bible stories she had never heard before and about the love of the Jesus hanging on the cross, except they said he was still alive.  They said she could make a choice to follow Jesus. Whether she understood the importance of this choice is unknown.

One gringo in particular touched her heart, and she his. He played games with her, jumped rope with her (which was both funny and strange since he was "muy gordo"), and threw a frisbee with her. He showed her this same love the translator spoke of concerning Jesus. It made enough of an impression that she brought him flowers, melting his heart.

He tried to communicate with her using very broken Spanish, with poor pronunciation, poor grammar, and often just plain wrong. It was both funny and frustrating and on more than one occasion they both ran to find the translator to understand what the other was saying.

When he had to leave, she did not understand. She wanted to know when he would return, and it crushed him to have to tell her "yo no se". They both cried inside (and later he cried outside as well). As he left, he told her how much he liked her and that she would be his friend "siempre". Each will likely remember the other forever.

I pray that Celina understood the gospel of Jesus about which she was both told and shown. I pray the seed planted will grow into full blown salvation. And I pray that one day I will see her again, if not here, then in eternity .