#22 Do Favors
Looking back, I suppose I could have included the theme of “doing favors” with the blog I wrote about lending things, but when I first brainstormed this blog I listed them separately, and I guess I’ll stick with my first inclination.
Our team spends a lot of time doing favors for the Nahuatl people. We have important resources like internet, for example, so we let people send messages on our computers and we attempt to find their family members who have gone to live in the city on Facebook so that they can communicate.
We have a fancy printer, so we make photocopies of insurance papers, birth certificates, and the like for anyone who needs them. We have cameras, so we take peoples’ pictures, develop them in town, and then bring them back a copy.
We charge cell phones, and give out empty food containers, and sell blankets, and write government agencies with questions, and share meals, and give out bundles of baby clothes to newborns. Our luxury Scotch tape is very popular in order to fix ripped money, which is otherwise not accepted at the store.
The list goes on and on. I’ll give you an example from recently. The government issued a new format of IDs nationwide. That meant that no one–not the teachers at the local school or the people who bring welfare money–would accep the old version. So, for almost every adult in the village we had to get online, fill out a form, download their new page, and print it for them. There were days when we pretty much did nothing else except greet people at the gate and then help them get their new paperwork. We turned it into a competition to see who did more, because it is better to laugh than to cry, right?
It is hard to explain how this is at once not a big deal and a huge use of time. But whether I am filling out a form, writing an email for someone, or charging a family’s flashlight, I am reminded that in all things the love of God compels me. It is my prayer that the Nahuatl will see that love and respond to it.
