The first time I came to Guatemala was 2017, which is also the year that I met my now, boyfriend, here. I remember the pure culture shock, and the pity I felt for the people here. It was one of those trips where you return home and you’re thinking about how grateful you are to NOT live somewhere like that. Looking back now, I was definitely ignorant, immature, and I did not know what to do with this new world I had been exposed to outside of my comfortable, better than average American life. Then, I went on to study different cultures in college, and went to a few more countries and saw the differences in communication, values, and thinking styles. This altered my view of culture- it is way more complex than I thought it was in 2017. I was no longer thinking in terms of good or bad- just different. The marked differences in culture weren’t good or bad, moral or immoral, just different ways of viewing the world. When Guatemalans, or more specifically, my boyfriend, do things differently than me, it would be terrible of me to categorize everything into either a good thing or a bad thing. Now, I want to be clear, every culture has its good and its bad. However, as an American I have to be careful and put away ethnocentric thinking and understand that culture is not neutral, but that everything has a reason. It’s a beautiful opportunity to learn more about people when we start viewing things as different, not good or bad.
2. Comparison will kill you.
I worked in the Public school system teaching Spanish in my city in Mississippi last year. Football games, weekly gifts for the teachers, spirit week, free lunches, a set schedule and hours, and a work team to collaborate with were all parts of my job. Now, teaching English in Guatemala looks very different. My days are long, filled with seemingly less work (which is hard for a productivity junkie) and more opportunity for conversation with the Guatemalans who I work with, zoom calls instead of in person classes, 6-day work weeks, and none of the extra activities. It’s easy, when I’m sitting at my desk, in between zoom calls, to start playing the comparison game and compare my life last year to this year. As a Christian as well, I had so many opportunities to share the gospel working at the public school. I always had a classroom full of 30 curious 9th and 10th graders. Now, I have one in-person class of 6 students weekly whose first language is Spanish and mine is English, and it would be easy to ask, “Why am I here?” Why did I leave a seemingly fruitful situation to be here in a much harder situation? I lack so much, I can’t express myself the same, I miss my family, the pay was so much better in America, etc… What I gain from thinking this way is nothing good. Sadness, loneliness, discontentment, and ungratefulness are the main plagues on someone constantly comparing their life with another. What I miss out on when I think about all the things I don’t have now, is the beautiful everyday moments that God gives. God is truly gracious, merciful, patient, and kind with his children. The time I spend alone is more time to greater find my identity, my satisfaction, and my joy in my Creator. The six students I teach in person are six souls who need to hear of the one who has died for them to give them new life. I may not have much money now and I don’t receive gifts regularly, but I do have clothes to wear, a place to live, food to eat, and God has provided every single thing that I need. Guatemala is beautiful, God is good, people here have the same needs as in America, and he has given me each sweet relationship to point them to Jesus, the author and perfector of faith.
3. Jesus is Lord of all cultures. Revelation 7:9-10 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
I attend a Guatemalan local church here, and it is a beautiful thing to see that Christ is Lord of the Church in a different context. The church looks similar, because no people own their church, but Christ is the owner, the caretaker, and the purpose of the church. The order, the sacraments, and the teaching is the same, because Christ ordained it be so, gracias a Dios. I can truly say that the response to my prayers, the cure to my feelings of loneliness, and a source of joy for me has been the people of God here in Guatemala. Of course, we can’t communicate perfectly, and we are very different, but the grace extended by people who have received their own share of grace from the Lord is a sweet, sweet thing. To think that this is only a glance of what heaven will be like, people from every people group in the world, gathered around ONE throne, to worship the ONE who is worthy. Pray with me, for the church in Guatemala, to be on the move to make sure that more people, not just in Guatemala, are able to enjoy the Lord’s grace together as ONE.
“Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun.” -C.S. Lewis
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