Invitations are always special, especially when they come from the family of a child in the physical therapy program you helped start in Guatemala. A few years ago we were invited to a special service to give thanks to God for the birthday of one of the girls in the physical therapy program. So two of our rehabilitation promoters, two physical therapy students from the United States, and I traveled about an hour  to attend the celebration. 

In typical Guatemala fashion, the event included a meal of caldo de res (beef soup). As we were eating, I noticed one of our rehabiltaiton promoters wasn’t eating all her food. I asked her about it, and she said she didn’t like the beef. I mentioned to her if she really wanted to go with me to Africa she was going to have to learn to eat whatever was served her.  Otherwise, she would risk offending our hosts. A few months later we were at a birthday party for another patient.  I had borrowed a car from the founder’s at ASELSI which had a turbo engine I wasn’t used to driving. It made for quite the trip to and from the event. On top of that, in attempts to park close to the side of the mountain on a narrow mountain road, I ended up in the drainage ditch and had to have another car pull me out. It made for quite the story.

The pull out occurred after I had dropped the rest of the group off and before the church service. After the church service we were served a meal and birthday cake. The same rehabilitation promoter who had traveled with me to the first event was with me again. I didn’t eat all the food served me, but I didn’t think anything about it. 

A few weeks later I was talking again about eating what is served you, and she bravely and surprisingly (as it isn’t common culturally to do) asked me about why I hadn’t eaten all my food at the birthday party a few weeks ago. Guilty as charged, I thought. I could have come up with an excuse, but I didn’t. Instead, I was so thankful she asked and didn’t let me walk around in my own hypocrisy. 

I confessed that I allowed fear to overcome me because of some conversations with other people in the car on the way there about whether or not the food would be safe to eat. I told her that I had wrongly given in to the fear and had gone against my own convictions. I thanked her for asking me about it and thanked God, too. I think we both learned something important that day.