We visit Mary and the kids one or two times a week. They live about a five minute’s walk from the Gateway in a little villiage with ten or so other families. Actually, they’re all one family. Her parents, brothers, cousins, and aunts live all around her and they’re always at each other’s houses cooking, talking, yelling at the kids. It’s not an affluent area in the least. The houses are quite small by American standards. And Mary is better off than most. Her husband works in a factory in Matamoros and a transmision shop down the road. They have no problems feeding their four kids, have a car, and are currently building anew bathroom. The first day we went over there their cousin was staying with them and had brought his xbox. Jon and Bryan didn’t stay outside with us for very long that day. Mary is a kind woman, but she’s not overly warm or friendly. Luckily we collecively have enough Spanish as a team to keep conversation flowing. We talk to her about all kinds of things, but we spend most of our time playing with the kids.
She has four- Cynthia (12), Lisbeth (9), and the twins, Adrian and Adriana (4). They’re all so wonderful. Cynthia was a little reserved at first, but has really come out of her shell. She comes home after school everyday with her pleated skirt and long socks looking like she just stepped out of an episode of Sailor Moon. She and her cousin Karen love Hannah Montanna and this Spanish telenovela for kids called “Patito Feo” (literally “Ugly Duckling”) which is like a mix between Ugly Betty and Gossip Girl. Just your average twelve year old girl. Lisbeth is goofy. You think she’s a quiet little kid, but then you find out she’s a trickster. She has these gorgeous green eyes and a beauiful smile. Now for “los cuates”, Adrian and Adriana. They’re more than a handful. Adrian reminds me a lot of my cousin Hood. He has the green eyes too, and we’ve all decided that he’s going to be a stud in approximately 10 years. He loves toy animals and calls every lion he sees “el rey leon”, “the lion king”. He loves to play and doesn’t love to listen to his mom, but he’s my boy. His sister, Adriana, is a little princess. She can’t match her brother in energy, but she makes up for it in affection. She loves piggy back rides and sitting in laps. In addition to Mary’s four kids, there are about seven or eight other cousins who make regular appearances at our visits. Noe, Josue, Itzel, Karen, Estrella, Gally, Ciclali. They’re all precious as well. None of them can really say my name so they call me “Lala” instead. Which is more than okay with me.
Ministry with them has been a huge learning experience. It wasn’t what we expected it to be at all. For the first few times we mostly sat around and tried to make conversation and ended up in more than a few awkward silences. But as the kids warmed up to us we started to see that maybe what God had for us there wasn’t exactly what we thought it was. These people aren’t destitute. They don’t need our money, they don’t need our help cooking or cleaning, they don’t need us to take them to church. They don’t need us at all actually. We aren’t super white missionaries coming in to bring them out of poverty and dispair. They may not have much, but they have food and family and that’s all they need. We’ve learned to just love them. Because that’s what ministry should be. No agenda, just love.
