Did I ever think I was going to sell books door to door? Nope, but have I done it? Yes.

Did I ever think I was going to evangelize door to door? Nope, but have I done it? Yes.

Almost every day my team, which is a group of 6 other people that are considered my family for the next 8 months, and I go into the barrios. The barrios are the neighborhoods that surround the outskirts of Jinetope. By American standards, the barrios would pretty much be concerned slums, where homes have insufficient plumbing; trash and sewage float along the curbs of streets; kids run around freely with t-shirts reading Boy Scouts Troop 39, Hilton Head Island, Powder-puff Purple team, etc. No matter how accustomed we, a group of gringos, become to our routine of walking, smiling, waving, talking, and praying our way through the barrios like we are in some parade, I still find myself uncomfortable everyday. This is specifically due to one reason – the language barrier – as we all long to dig deeper into their lives and share the Gospel.

It’s kind of funny how old habits never die. I still find myself using a structure very similar to the approach I learned while selling books. I approach them with a samile and a wave saying hi [hola], introducing myself [me llamo Audrey], what’s your name [como se llama], saying who I am [soy una estudianta de los EEUU], and why we are there [nosotros somos missionarios and vivimos en la iglesia Nueva Vida por tres meses]. Then it’s up to the Holy Spirit what happens from there. Recently, it is cool to slowly start to see what fruit has come of our and previous teams’ efforts and relationships.

As we return to places we have visited on multiple occasions, we great others with besos (kisses on the cheeks) and hugs. Sometimes I feel like I have never felt so much affection and openness from someone. For example, one little boy ran up to me today in an area we had never visited, and I expected to greet him with a high five; nope, he wanted a hug. These are the moments where I feel God’s love that He so freely gives to us to pour out on others.

It is so easy though to just keep floating on in our little gringo parade as we play with kids and small talk with parents. The more challenging and uncomfortable thing to do is to stop and listen for the Holy Spirit to guide us. We are here to bring heaven on earth, and more specifically in the barrios we are there to flood them with the truth of our heavenly Father. My prayer is that we are vessels for God to bring His glory and we humble ourselves to actually kiss the arthritic hands of an elderly woman; pray for a little baby’s asthma to dissipate; or even declare to a teenage girl the beauty, worth, and voice she has. I pray that this is our heartbeat while we are here.

One thing that has really struck me as we have visited the barrios the past couple of days is actually seeing the people from the church, who we now dearly consider our friends. We first met them at the church so we don’t know their stories on how they started attending Nueva Vida, but for me this gives me such hope. For many of these people the way they heard about the church was through a personal relationship or interaction with a gringo in the barrios. To me this is very humbling…that God would actually choose someone that is made of dust (Psalm 103) to actually use to help foster a relationship between Him and another person. May we, as your humble servants, have your heartbeat with its intentionality in the barrios.