Guatemala Journal – The Silence and the Pain (Part V)

Five years before I had met a young man, Juanbi, who helped 15 widows with a pig-rearing project in that area. Although he only spoke Quiche (one of the four main Mayan languages) I immediately felt a fatherly affection for him. He was so hardworking and he treated the pigs like pets, naming each one of the ten. He was orphaned from a young age and now he found himself responsible for the care of his three younger siblings.

Whenever I visited Guatemala, I would always try to see him and three years ago, when my wife and I vacationed in Guatemala, we took him shopping for clothes. I was amazed that for someone who had little, he had great dignity, refusing many of the pieces of clothing or shoes that we offered to buy for him. I often commented to him that my one regret was that we could not communicate without a translator.

Aloma with Juanbi

Pastor Chan, one of our partners in Guatemala, arranged for Juanbi to come and see me during our visit to Josefa. It filled me with joy to see him. He said, through Pastor Chan, that he had a surprise for me. Suddenly, he started speaking to me in the most beautiful Spanish that one could imagine. I hugged him and he started crying and so did I. I was moved that he credited me as his inspiration for learning the language, but I also thought that practically this would open job possibilities for him.

I invited him to dinner with us and I marveled at what he told me. Having learned Spanish at the Mayan Institute (a free school for Mayan descendants) he was able to get a job in construction from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays he continued to study all day and had just finished grade school and was about to begin secondary school and had ambitions for going to college. On Sundays he would study and play soccer with nine friends who lived in his tiny village of nine homes.

If this sounds amazing to you, please understand that he walks five hours each day to get to work and back home, and four hours on Saturday to get to school and back. What a great example of discipline, tenacity and will. What a great surprise!