This week has whizzed by at a blinding speed, really. It also seems that so many of the past several days' events have become all muddled together. I should really do a better job of keeping up with what's going on -- what with my notoriously bad short term memory and all.
Last Saturday (I believe), the day before the peacock scare, I went with Several of my friends to a town right outside of Guadalajara called Tonala. This town is completely saturated with small booths, carts, and storefronts carrying almost everything you could think to purchase. It is also very well known for it's hand carved furniture at really good prices. I did not buy any furniture, since I didn't see anything I was in love with, we didn't really have room in our van of nine for a dresser, and because I had already made a major dip in my spending money for Christmas presents and a snazzy new purse. We did have a really great time though -- I will definitely have to make another trip before I go back to the states for Christmas.
After Tonala, several of us went to the big mall here for my late birthday celebration. I thought that it might be fun for us to watch a movie at the VIP cinema, and I was totally right!! For just nine dollars we got to watch a film while sitting in leather recliners as waiters came around to take our order. The food was extra, but when else are you going to get the chance to eat a chocolate and banana crepe and sip on a cinnamon frappe at the theatre?? It was a very good night, indeed.
Today, I went back to Arenalis (the poor puebla right outside of town) for the kids' club 5th anniversary celebration. Christen, Tara and I were in charge of face painting. When we got there (after waiting forever for the bus), we were given a supply of that really thick sticky paint, some make-up pencils, and q-tips. We had to really adapt how we were going to paint everything, but it was still fun, and even though I could only say a combined total of about seven words to anyone there, the little art sheets that we made beforehand really helped. All the chidren had to do was point to the picture that they wanted. I cannot count the bunnies and sunflowers and snakes that I had to draw on little dirty faces.
About midway through the event, right after I had had an enormous cross painted/glittered onto my face by a little boy named Diego, it started to rain. Scratch that, it started to POUR. We all gathered in the little house and stood around while the children ate their special snack of fruit salad served in a cantaloupe half. Diego (who refused to actually speak to us for the entire afternoon), had a lot of fun hiding behind us and trying to offer us some of his third bowl of fruit salad. When the rain subsided a bit, we went outside to help clean a bit, then finally made our way back home. It was a good day.
You know, today actually reminds me of what we were talking about in Crosswalk this week. Jesus had upbraided the disciples for shooing children away from Him, and said that unless we come just like little children, then we cannot enter the Kingdom of God at all. The pastor's focus wasn't that the children were the picture of virtue and purity, but that in the first century children had no social standing whatsoever. There was nothing that a first century child could offer that would warrant them receiving anything of note. They weren't worth anything because they couldn't contribute to their society.
The children whose faces I looked into and painted today are very similar. There's not much that any of them could give or offer in exchange for anything worthwhile. In fact, the only way that any of them would ever be able to receive anything truly good, would be due to the benevolence of others. Christ wanted the disciples (and us) to know that we can never call ourselves deserving of this great gift of salvation. We don't have a single scrap to give him that could equal what He paid. It's only His gracious and loving kindness that allows us access to Him.
We are, every one, just the same. We have nothing at all to offer our loving Father. Because He is good though, He accepts us and takes us in -- if we are willing to come just like empty handed little children.
-Holly
1 comment:
Diego?
I thought his name was Miguel.
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