Pleased to meet you

I'm not too bad with remembering names and faces, which is helpful when that's one of the main things that I'm doing right now. There's Jasmine and Daniela, Juan and Ernesto, Jahana, Luis David, etc. etc.

But they're not just names. I'm beginning to build and enter into stories with these people. I washed cups with Christopher and I know that Cecy and Ruth work with CFCI. Carolina has two children, and Luis David walks into George's life and kitchen without asking. Later, some of the other missionaries tell me a little bit about the people I met briefly at church, and I connect faces and names and stories like a giant jig saw puzzle.

It's not a puzzle to solve, however, or a victory to accomplish, because these are people, each unique and incredibly special. Each loved by God as if there was only one to be loved. After meeting someone and talking only briefly with them on the most banal of subjects (my Spanish is still pretty pedestrian), I hear a little bit more about their story from someone else and am surprised at the rigors of their life and the strength of their faith.

I am honored and humbled to be let into their lives.