September 2010
Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.
Psalms 40:17
I check my watch. Alina* is half an hour late to Suti Sana, and has just missed our entire devotions. I sigh loudly as a cell-phone rings.
“It’s Alina,” the cell owner whispers to me. “She’s having problems. Can I answer?”
“Could I talk to her?” I ask, and take the cell when she nods. “Alina? Where are you, are you ok?”
Silence. For a long moment.
Then, “Cara, I’m in the Ceja.” **
“Are you ok? Do you need help?”
Silence again.
“Um, I’m not sure you’d want to help.”
“Why not? Alina, what is it?”
I hear her voice crack on the other end. Or is it just a bad cell connection? “There’s a dog here. He’s been here for three days, dying of cold. I can’t just leave him.”
Of course. Alina, our animal lover. The one that spends her extra change on chicken feed and bones for her scraggly pets. Alina, who when we studied the Ten Commandments, could not be convinced that “Do not kill” didn’t apply to animals as well. Or that animals didn’t have eternal souls. Who scatters sunflower seeds surreptitiously in our indoor gym for the rascally pigeons that live in the rafters.
“Alina, just stay there. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Which is how I spend the next half hour wandering through the maze of the Ceja, scolding myself for not verifying Alina’s (and the dying dog’s) exact location. I picture her huddled over the mangy mutt in a muddy, trash-filled ditch, its fur ratted into dreadlocks. “Covered with fleas and disease, for sure,” I mutter angrily. “Alina, if only you knew that I would do so much more for you than you’re doing for this dog. That your rescue means the world to me.”
Finally I call back to the Casa de Esperanza for some intel. After a few minutes of confusion, someone verifies, “She’s in a taxi on the way down to La Paz to find a vet,”.
So why am I standing alone in the middle of the Ceja, alone, when the dear girl I’m looking for is running away from me? She doesn’t trust me, I think. She doesn’t trust that I’ll take care of her mangy dog as well as she will.
I swing myself into a minibus to head back to the Casa de Esperanza. As I breath deeply, a whisper quietly parts my frustrated thoughts, “Are you so different, beloved? Your rescue meant the world to me. But do you trust me to do the best? For you? For Alina?”
Living and learning,
Cara
PS. Mache has dived back into his church activities of youth group, worship, website, and preaching since we’ve gotten back from the States. I’ve taken a little longer to adjust, due to both a killer strain of salmonella that followed me home one day, and a nostalgia for the green summer growth of the States.
PPS. Suti Sana is really doing wonderfully! We’re hoping to have a shipment of our first three models in the States and on the website in time for Christmas. Keep your eyes peeled!
PPPS. Alina showed up to work a few hours later, sobbing because they had put the dog down. “What hurt me so much was that no one would show love to a fellow living creature!” she gasped through her sobs. Again, Jesus was whispering to me, “And you? Are you showing love to those others ignore?”
*Alina’s name has been changes for her privacy.
**Ceja—the large marketplace a few blocks from the Casa de Esperanza. Literally translated “eyebrow”, reflecting how it curves around the edge of El Alto, skirting the steep drop to the capital La Paz.