Marlo and I arrived in Chinandega 2:30 Saturday afternoon, settled in at Hotel Don Mario, and headed for a late lunch at Tip Top, a fast-food chicken place a few blocks down the street.
We order, sit at a table, and notice two heavy-set, retirement-age gringos at a nearby booth. Within seconds one walks over and asks what brought us to Chinandega.
“To learn about five churches with whom our congregation is building a relationship,” we say.
We ask the same question. He takes a deep breath, asks if he can join us, and tells us non-stop:
- He has made a few trips here and loved it. “The people here are so hungry for the gospel. You can hand out 1000 tracts in an hour. They take one and go and get their friends.”
- He recently retired from his plumbing business, bought property 40 minutes from here, and has founded a retreat camp there. Recently, he also bought a building in Chinandega—for a bargain price—and is starting a youth ministry.
I paste on a smile and an attentive face as he continues:
- No, he is not connected with any organization in the states or in Nicaragua. He is moving ahead in faith, and the success has been amazing. He just bought this second building on faith, a $1,000 down payment—and now, out of the blue, a US congregation has pledged $500 per month to his ministry.
- No, he hasn’t studied Spanish, but has learned to speak a bit of it through living here.
His companion, his duplicate except for a corded hat and wire rims, joins him. They carry on for another 15 minutes nonstop about fantastic blessing and success—and stumbling across English-speaking Nicaraguans who have joined their ministry.
When they ask the waiter for their bill (la cuenta) and hit the streets for more victorious living, we have not said more than those first two sentences.
In his understated style, Marlo says, “I didn’t pick up totally positive vibes.”
Me? I want to throw my evangelical Christianity through the restaurant doors behind them into the Chinandega streets.
I breathe deep—in, counting slowly for a count of four, holding for a count of 7, exhaling for a count of 8. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
When I’m finally more centered and forgiving, I am paralyzed by a new thought:
As they sat across the table from me, is it possible that I was gazing in a mirror?
Hi Carol,
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was a mirror. Perhaps a prism. Maybe a finely cut jewel with a million facets -- OK some parts crudely cut and annoying in the extreme -- but part of a big, big thing.
I've been recording voice over stuff for Librivox.org (an outfit that is using volunteers to record audiobooks for the mass of lit in the public domain). I'm on a project called "Guide to the Study of the Christian Religion" that was put out by the University of Chicago Divinity school in around 1910. Way, WAY liberal. It had this to say about evangelicalism: "However selfish and commercial certain forms of
evangelicalism may appear, however much it has failed to appreciate the inefficiency of aristocratic conceptions in morality, to it are due the abolition of slavery, reforms in
prisons, and the care of the insane and of the poor, the establishment of Young Men's Christian Associations, Bible and foreign mission societies, colleges, and theological seminaries.
Altogether evangelicaUsm is to be credited with profoundly ethical sympathies."
I appreciated your rant (and often share it) and also know you see a more circumspect view when the seas calm some.
blessings,
John
Thanks, John.
ReplyDeleteI like the prism image. Somehow it's easier for me to accept crudely cut parts in other cultures more than in my own--especially given the current American fundamentalist voices in an election year. And, yes, I suppose, the seas will calm. . .