My Spanish instructor is Belli (short for Ana Isabela) and she is about 50 years old, with two grown children and a beautiful smile. She is a little shorter than me, has dark curly hair, and she is very nice to work with. Belli is also Catholic, so when she asked me what I did, I told her I was a pastor and instead of being dismayed or confused, she just said, "that's good," and went on to explain that there were no female pastors in Guatemala. Then as we finished for the day, the first thing she told the other teachers was that I was a pastor and wasn't that neat. Despite never having met a female pastor before, she accepted me for who I am.
Then today we actually talked more about the differences and the similarities between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. She wanted to lump Lutherans in with all the other protestant churches in Guatemala, but many of them are quite evangelical and have a more decision-based theology. So we shared with one another about infant baptism, confirmation, and first communion. She was surprised at how many similarities there are and she was very open to learning about the differences. She wrapped up our conversation by saying that she enjoys having a student that she can talk about her faith with. Too often, she has students that don't believe in anything and that makes her quite sad and concerned. Her faith is important to her and it was such a joy for me to hear her speak so freely about it. She still doesn't understand why we don't pray to Mary..she compared it to when a child asks mom to ask dad for something....and I do understand her point of view. It is interesting to me how easy people get riled up when someone believes differently than they do...but why? Why is it so difficult to simply share and learn and seek understanding?
It certainly is a God-thing when we do...and if Belli and I, speaking two different languages, can have such a dialogue....I definately saw God in action today.
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Amen
ReplyDeleteHey Karn this is really interesting to read having just spent a month in Nicaragua. Down there the groups seemed to be either Catholic or Christian. Since a large majority of the population is Catholic, Mary is everywhere you go. The Catholics there get angry because they have the misconception that other Christian groups don't think Mary is important at all. Also, in Nicaragua I did not see as much devotion to Jesus as I did to Mary and other saints. Mary is everywhere. They have parades for her, paintings and sculptures everywhere, and even pray to her. One day I also saw a huge party/parade for Paul and his work. I am sure they believe in Jesus, but it was just not as evident. I wish I would have talked to more people about those differences. Awesome job though for having such a conversation on faith and religion (in Spanish too!!). God Bless!
ReplyDelete-Lianne