Found in Translation (38 page)

“Sure, Neil. You start.”

His bravery suddenly turned to sloppy, melting gelatinness that looked like it might run over and under the seats and made me instinctively lean toward Aleesha. I waited for him to throw up, but he didn’t. I turned to face him again.

“Go on, Neil. I’m not going to bite.”

He brightened a little and opened his mouth. He remained silent for a moment and then closed his mouth again. He must have been searching for the proper starting point.

But bigmouth me had to say something cute. I must be a direct descendant of Simon Peter, even without being any percent Jewish. “I bite very seldom, anyhow.”

He turned pale. I had him pinned against the window. He couldn’t escape, and he knew it. He swallowed hard and opened his mouth again, but nothing came out.

“Neil, I’m sorry. I was just teasing ….”

He smiled. But ever so slightly. “Oh, I know that,” he managed to say. But he said it in that defensive male tone of voice that means “Really? You could’ve fooled me, you witch.”

I’d made things bad enough for the poor kid, so I shut up and waited for him to say something. I’d keep waiting, too, whether it took five seconds, five minutes, or five hours for him to regain the courage to talk to me.

“Kimmy,” he said about twenty minutes later, “have you ever done something you felt God really wanted you to do?”

You were terrified to ask that, Neil? And what does it have to do with a confession, anyhow?
I resisted the temptation to say that to him, though. I was nice. “I just spent a week of my life reading the Gospel of Luke aloud in a language I can’t speak. I wouldn’t have done it if God hadn’t convinced me to.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Okay. Kimmy, have you ever abstained from doing something—something really good—because God didn’t want you to?”

Huh?
“Abstained from …? I don’t think so.”

If God had closed the door on this mission trip, I could have answered yes. But He’d left it open. I started to ask Neil why, but voiced a gentler, “Have you?” instead.

“That’s what I need to confess. I’ve been terrified to tell you how much I could have assisted you this past week. I wanted to help, but God wouldn’t let me. I prayed about it. Hard. I wrestled with God nightly, but He kept saying no.” Neil looked so sincere. So intent on saying things correctly—the best way possible.

“I wasn’t afraid to help you,” he added as if I might misunderstand his motivation, “and I wasn’t lazy or unconcerned.”

“First, I can’t think of any way you could have helped me this week. Second, why should I get upset about God telling you no?”

He began explaining. The further he went, the more I ground my teeth and regretted assuring him I didn’t bite. Every word he said made me angrier. Poor Neil must’ve felt more defenseless than ever in that position by the window with no means of escape. In fact, he looked so terrified I thought he might prefer to jump through the window of a moving bus rather than remain where I could reach over and wring his scrawny neck.

I’d successfully curbed my swearing during the past two weeks, but right now I found myself under the influence of one of those hateful attitudes that’s just as sinful as cursing.

“Kim, I feel awful. Please say something.”

Before I could respond the way I wanted to, the peace of God flowed through my head and heart, and the negative words I’d planned to say stuck in my throat. God’s love was more powerful than my human anger.

“That’s okay, Neil. I understand.”
Huh? Did I really say that? Things aren’t one bit okay; yet they are, and I don’t understand why.
Although I’d let God speak for me, my feelings needed to catch up with my words.

“But how can you, Kimmy? I could have taught you everything you needed to know. I could have translated your testimony. I could have taught you the rules of pronunciation before you started reading.”

I breathed a silent prayer before responding. I needed to say the right thing. “I think I know why God wouldn’t let you help. He wanted me to rely totally on Him. Accepting your Spanish expertise would’ve kept me from doing that. Then, too, the villagers wouldn’t have gotten so caught up in the reading if I hadn’t needed their tutoring.”

He nodded, and I smiled about making such good sense to a boy genius. “But didn’t God want you to use your Spanish at all? Charlie and Rob must have had a rough time not knowing they had a capable translator in their midst.” I hadn’t meant to accuse him of negligence, but I expressed my curiosity badly.

“Kimmy, maybe you’ve noticed I don’t fit in well among so many eighteen-year-olds?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Team members had accepted Neil on the surface—he was a well-motivated, hard-working, functional part of the team—but how many people had tried relating to him on a personal level? Who’d really tried getting to know him?

I hadn’t.

“I was afraid I’d sound like a show-off if I admitted publicly how good I am in Spanish. If I sound boastful telling you about my expertise, how would the others have taken it?”

“Good point, but—”

“I explained everything to Rob and Charlie after the first morning’s meeting. No matter how desperate they were for a translator, they understood and respected my dilemma. I helped assign the villagers to teams and offered to help in other strategic ways. They encouraged the villagers to help them guard my secret.”

“And to think Anjelita almost married us off without me knowing how talented you are.”

“Bravo.” He chuckled. “Haven’t you wondered why Anjelita gave up so easily after our lone evening of being sweethearts?”

“Many times.”

“I had a little heart-to-heart with Rosa and Anjelita. I explained that we both had sweethearts back home and didn’t want to be disloyal to them. I do, you recall, and I’ll bet you have a boyfriend at home yourself. Probably a lot of them.”

“Duh!” I thumped myself in the head.
What a great solution.

“Sounds like a ripe watermelon to me,” Neil said, egging me on. He was growing bolder with his elder now, and I loved it. I’d never realized he could be this much fun.

We laughed together, and I heard a little snicker from Aleesha.

We rode in silence for a few minutes.

“Kim, uh, Kimmy. I’m sorry, but I like ‘Kim’ better. I hope you don’t mind ….”

He was so cute. If he’d been a puppy or a kitten, I would’ve tried taking him home with me.
Mom and Dad, this is my new pet kid, Neil. He doesn’t eat much, and he’s already housebroken. He can sleep on the floor in the basement, and I promise to take good care of him. You’ll barely know he’s around. He’ll be too busy memorizing every book in the public library and doing post-doctoral studies while completing his first year of college.

“You and Aleesha!” I winked at him. “Me, too.” I looked around to make sure Rob wasn’t nearby, but he must have been on another bus this time. “I didn’t want to admit I disliked the nickname Kimmy. I was afraid of losing some much-needed goodwill.”

A grumble came from Aleesha’s seat. “You’re kidding me.” She didn’t open her eyes. How long she’d been awake was beyond me, but I doubted that she’d missed one word of this conversation. I would’ve done the same thing in her place.

Aleesha hadn’t finished, though—talking or listening. “Go on, Neil. You were saying, ‘Kim … ‘ before you both started chasing that ugly rabbit.”

“Uh, right.” He peeked around me at Aleesha and then looked at me again. “I really admire your ability to learn Spanish pronunciation the way you did.”

“ ‘Uh’ is right, Neil,” I said, smiling. I didn’t want to chance scaring the poor boy any more today. “And thanks.”

“Your intensive course was great. I learned to speak the best Spanish anyone can learn in high school, but you learned to pronounce it the way native speakers do. I’ll bet God uses that talent of yours again someday.”

I buried that seed of encouragement somewhere deep inside my brain, where it might take root and grow.

“Maybe so,” I said. “Neil, you know what was so frustrating in Santa María?”

“What?”

I got serious again. “I prayed hard that God would use my reading for His purposes, and I believe He did. But I wanted to see results, and I haven’t. Not except maybe the look on Rosa’s face when I gave her my Spanish Bible.” I sighed and got quiet.

“Kim, God used you in ways you wouldn’t believe, and I’m the only one who can tell you the specifics.”

The only one? What in the world …
? “Tell me! Please.”

“The day you started reading, the village men—the women, too, although they were shier—asked what you were doing and why you were doing it. Once you no longer needed constant correcting, the villagers asked more about the content of your reading. They were determined to understand what Lucas was all about. They asked how the Santa Biblia differed from other books they were familiar with, and you’d be amazed at the variety of books they named. Everything from Mexican history to recent secular novels.

“I’m no theologian, but between a lifetime of Sunday school and several online seminary courses I’ve taken recently, I answered most of their questions. While my pastor might not agree with every detail, I don’t think I misled anyone.

“God used you to lead them in some real, honest-to-goodness soul-searching. I’m not saying everyone became a Christian, no matter how much both of us wish—”

“All three of us,” Aleesha said, her eyes still closed.

“The seed you planted fell on soil that was more fertile than you could ever imagine.”

As anxious as I was to hear the rest of Neil’s story, a strange and seemingly unrelated question popped into my head. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I got the answer.

“Why did you need to ‘confess’ your reason for not using your Spanish expertise to help me? I mean, since God told you not to help, it’s not like you sinned against me. The whole thing was between you and God. You didn’t need to tell me anything about it.”

“Interesting you should say that, Kim. I understood how anxious you were to find out whether your reading of Lucas had done any good, but I couldn’t reveal that without telling you the whole story.”

While I stumbled over my words fishing for a response, Neil reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of papers—twenty sheets of mix-and-match paper, maybe more, covered front and back with smallish, gently flowing, feminine longhand in a garish shade of red ink.

I’d seen them once before. On top of Rosa’s blanket. Before I could say anything, Neil explained.

“Rosa wrote this letter and asked me to translate it for you. I’ve looked through it hurriedly. It’s lengthy—you can see that—and it’s quite personal in places. I have a packet of tissues here somewhere … all three of us will need them.”

Neil was serious about the tissues. He took a couple and handed me the packet. I was already misting in anticipation. “Reading this to you feels weird.”

“It shouldn’t, Neil. This is between you and me … ”—I glanced at Aleesha, who was still pretending to sleep—“and old sleepyhead over there.”

Aleesha amazed me by remaining silent.

“Go on, Neil.”

He apologized for not being able to do a thorough translation without his laptop. After Rosa used up all of his paper, he’d gotten more for her from Geoff. Since she hadn’t given him the letter until that morning, he’d only gotten to look over it briefly and would have to translate most of it on the fly.

I assured him that I—Aleesha and I, that is—would be patient and understanding.

“You’ll want to take the original home with you,” he said, “but we’ll find a copier at the airport so I can have a copy to translate properly. I’ll e-mail it to you early tomorrow if I have to stay up half of tonight to do it.”

“Don’t. At your convenience is soon enough.” I hoped I sounded sincere, but we both probably knew I hadn’t meant it. I wanted it as soon as possible.

His translation on the bus was rough, but comprehensible, and the tissues disappeared faster than either of us had expected.

M
y dear sister Kim, let me tell you about the horrifying storm that led to your coming. Then you’ll better understand why your time here has meant so much to all of us.

I’ve never seen a windstorm as violent as the one that demolished the village a month ago. Village legends tell of such storms; so from the instant we spotted it heading toward us—it was visible for miles across the flat countryside—we knew we had little hope of survival unless it veered in a different direction before reaching Santa María.

The black wind shocked us by going over—over and around—the building I’ve heard you refer to as a “church,” whatever that is. In the yard, it spewed filthy remnants of trash from far away to make room in its belly for our houses and possessions. You’ve seen and helped to clean up that rubbish.

We didn’t remain in our homes waiting for the funnel to attack, however. At the first sighting of the black spiral, we ran hither and thither with no sense of purpose. No one knew what to do or where to go.

You poor people …

Observing the chaos, my older daughter, Alazne—Alazne means “miracle”—yelled so everyone could hear, “Go to the caves! Take your families and go to the little caves.”

Everyone knew what she was referring to. Numerous small, underground caves abound in the area behind the church. Everyone who heard Alazne’s cry began running toward them.

Her dependence on crutches—she was born with spina bifida—didn’t keep her from rushing from house to house to make sure each family heard her warning. I saw her help several older people.

That wasn’t safe, though, was it? The twister had to be awfully close by then ….

Although I feared for her safety and urged her to hurry to our cave, I couldn’t ask her not to help the people of her village. I didn’t try to. She seemed far older—more mature and more responsible—than her twelve years.

More mature than me at eighteen …

I remained outside our cave watching and waiting for Alazne as long as I could. She still hadn’t come to the refuge we would soon claim as our only home. In my heart of hearts, I believed—or at least I tried to convince myself—she was safe in another cave.