My Dearest Brenda, Aug.
2012
It seems like it was just yesterday that I met you for the
first time at the Compassion office in Guatemala City twelve years ago. Do you
remember that day? We had a nice
visit there where your mother gave me the first of many lovely woven gifts: a
dark violet head wrapping, that I now use as a centerpiece on my dining
table.
We then traveled in a minibus out to Antigua where we toured
through some of the old monasteries and had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant
that had a lush, sun-dappled garden and playground. While we were eating you
kept looking longingly out at the yard, and I knew you wanted to explore. When
we finished our eating, we excused ourselves to discover what they had to
offer. No interpreter was going to
be necessary. Because you were so tiny, we could hardly hold hands when we
walked. You had just learned how
to skip, and so you gave me some lessons on how to do it properly.
When we arrived at the swing set, you were a mixture of
excited and scared. I sat down on
the little seat and gave a demonstration on how it worked. Then you took a turn, and were
instantly giggling as you began moving yourself back and forth. I positioned myself behind you and
began pushing you a bit more with each return. Your gentle laughter turned into
joy-filled squeals as you soared higher and higher. The others back at the table could see and hear you, and
they were clapping. I then taught
you how to use the slide and that was a great source of happy woops as well.
With each passing year I have been equally joy-filled
watching you grow. Whether from
the updated photos, the progress in your penmanship, the maturity in your
drawings, and certainly in the lovely time we have gotten to spend together in
the seven journeys I have made to Guatemala. I want to thank you and your
mother, Micaela, and other family members for making so much effort to travel
long hours to see me, and always giving me a fantastic hand-made gift like my
colorful jacket, the dress shirt, the vest, and the ornate wall hanging, just
to name a few.
I have a stack several inches thick of every letter and
thank-you note you have ever sent to me, as well as hundreds of photographs
from our visits. Six of those
pictures are framed and hanging in my home. My favorite is in my main room where all of my friends sit
while visiting. It is that
portrait of you sitting next to an ancient Antiguan fountain, where the mixture
of your robin-egg blue sweater, sea green blouse, and the beige and rust painted
wall all perfectly frame your flowing, shiny black hair, almond skin, and warm
ebony eyes. Your gentle smile is the centerpiece. You are no longer a little girl losing her baby teeth…you
have blossomed into a striking young woman. All of my houseguests always comment on how beautiful you
are.
But your beauty isn’t just physical. I recall how proud you were to write
out all the numbers up to 100, and writing out the alphabet, and spelling your
own name in your kindergarten and early elementary years. In successive visits
you impressed me with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. With
each successive year your letters showed refinement in your penmanship and
structure, and your drawings grew in beauty and skill. You also became a good basketball
player. In the early days I needed
to lift you up high so you could make a basket. Now you can shoot the ball with ease and accuracy, while
dribbling circles around me. As I
look back on this dozen years, I have always been warmed to hear of your good
grades as you were learning so much in school and at the Compassion Student
Center, and to hear you speak of your hopes for a good future. Yes, you are a
woman who shows beauty on many levels.
Thus, it is sad on one hand that our relationship as sponsor
and child is coming to an end. But on the other, it is so exciting to think
where you will be heading next in your life.
Let’s not look at this as the end of our story
together. I would rather think of
it as the close to just one chapter, and the turning of the page into many more
to come. I will be anxious to see
more of how God will be moving in your life as more unfolds with each new
season.
I would very much like to stay in touch with you. Below is my mailing address. I would like to get yours as well, and
we can continue exchanging communiqués on our own. And perhaps we will be able to visit more when I make my
journeys with Compassion International to The Land of Eternal Spring that is
Guatemala. I pray you feel the
same way.
In closing, I’ll recall how touched I still am by one of the
picture that was taken of you and me inside the front entrance of your home in
SololB of the central highlands when I visited in 2003. Your mom had painted DIOS NOS AMA in
bold purple letters on the wall next to the door, for everyone to see as they
came and went. That declaration,
“God loves us,” was and still is evident in the fruit that has come forth in
your life, Brenda. And our God is
hardly finished with you and your family yet.
“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and
whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and
keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely
dependable. If he said it, he’ll
do it! Friend, keep up your prayers for me, as I will for you. The amazing
grace of Jesus Christ be with you always!” (First Thessalonians 5:25-28) I love
you, Brenda!
Under His Mercy,
Mark
Here are a few pics from our times together. There will be more in the near future (my computer is fighting me on some downloads of great shots of when Brenda was tiny).
Here are a few pics from our times together. There will be more in the near future (my computer is fighting me on some downloads of great shots of when Brenda was tiny).
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