There's no crying in basketball!

One common concern that I hear from people who are unsure about going on mission is that they do not speak Spanish. Usually, my retort is that the people that we visit on mission do not speak Spanish too!

I think that my mom would describe this as being a "smart something or another". Yet, I call it as I see.

In the rural communities, the people there grow up speaking their native tongue of Quiche (pronounce Ki'che; not quiche like the French food). As they have to learn Spanish in school - primarily kindergarten, I think they have an acute awareness of what it is like to not be able to communicate with others due to a language barrier. From this, I have experienced a great deal of tolerance and understanding from our friends in Chicabracan to the fact that I do not speak Spanish.

Actually, the kids go out of there way to try to find the few words that I do know in Spanish to parse together what they are thinking or asking. Sometimes they even pepper in a few English words that we teach them during class.

One such practical experience of non-verbal communication and helplessness (on my part) came a few years ago in an unusual setting.

Since I am limited linguistically, I really enjoy playing sports with the kids. This is something that transcends words, of course. In particular, I play basketball with the girls as this is apparently a girl's sport there and I love basketball. Clearly the boys have never seen LeBron James or Yao Ming because if you toss them a basketball, they turn away like it has cooties.

Well, as we were playing basketball during recess, someone's shot at the basket missed quite considerably and headed down the 10-foot ramp to the dirt road and field below. (I do not claim this air ball as my own, but I definitely kept the kids "cool" by throwing up plenty of air myself that day.) I gave chase to the ball so we could keep playing, except that I forgot one thing... how much it had rained the night before. Aye caramba!!! Eventually I did realize it had rained because I was 20 feet into a very muddy field. Since I didn't want to slide in the mud, I slowed down pursuit of the ball as best as I could and tried to find a dry spot or two.

A few little girls had given chase after me knowing the field conditions and one went to retrieve the ball for me while I headed to the one wash basin at the school to somehow clean all of the mud off of my pant legs, shoes and feet (because, of course, I was wearing sandals).

As I scrambled around trying to wash off without making a scene, I was out-of-luck! Kids started to congregate around me in this tiny room with the low-hung roof. I am often called El Gigante in the rural villages for this very reason. After about a half-minute of trying to wash my foot in the washtub with the one bar of soap, the little girl who picked up the basketball appeared. She had a medium-sized bucket and towel in her hands and she was going to help me clean off.

Actually, she was there to help me wash and dry my feet. PAUSE. Yes, she was doing just like Jesus did when he kneeled down to wash the feet of his disciples as told in John's Gospel.

Needless to say, I was immensely humbled and have always felt touched by this simple gesture for which no words were needed.