Look, it stands out in the colonia. Azul Grande / Big Blue and I am living in it for a season here in Guatemala. Some times I have my own place depending on how long I am here, other times with missionary friends, but some years I live with my Guatemalan friends in a neighbourhood where you see no other foreigners, i.e. gringos or as in my case, gringa!! I just would like to introduce you to a middle class Guatemalan family that loves God and serves Him with passion and commitment. I met Acsa, my best Guatemalan friend, so many years ago I can not remember! She taught school at Colegio Evangelico Mixto Centro Amercicano. I’d enrolled Edgar Rolando into primero basico and he was not doing well in English. The rest is history, what started as me helping her with his class grew into me being a full blown teacher at that school for eight years and at one point I taught 10 levels of English from first grade to career training!!
Anyway, let’s get back to the house which is a lively Home with a Capital H!! The front part is an office that started as a little store, then they added an internet business as in this neighbourhood which ends at the foot of a mountain there was no where for blocks and blocks to use internet. Now they added an auxiliary bank to take payments, WHAT A CONCEPT!! When they are open for business, the doorbell rings incessantly, and the small office area is brimming over with little kids, teens and adults who make use of their services.
In many ways this is secondary to the family that lives in the house. Acsa no longer formally teaches, but every day she is working with students that come in, helping them with research, printing out their papers, she counsels with people who come in and prays with them. Christian music is usually blaring from one of the computers or from the kitchen which IS the true heart of the home. Their three children aged from 19 to 22 have friends filling the downstairs and their laughter rings thorough the humble home. I say humble because what is most important to all of them is relation and family. I can go into the kitchen and find kids coloring on the table or a pastor preaching, then praying with a couple.
I ask Andres, their younger son who is now in seminary after finishing his career training in accounting, what was one word to describe his “house”, he really had to think, finally he said, “grande” / big. THEN I ask what is one word to describe his “home”, after delibertation he said, “hermosa” / beautiful. When I think of the family as a whole I could almost cry at his response because he was so right, so honest. It would be hard to find a more beautiful family in spirit than the Revolorio Lopez family. Their daughter Ruth completed her career training and she decided to go into ministry also, she is in the last year of studying to be an evangelistic missionary. She has a rich history to build on and is named after her grandmother Ruth, a sainly woman I had the privelidege to know before God called her home. Her grandfather, Samuel, a truly wise man of God, was a very well known and respected pastor . Acsa IS a PK, preacher’s kid that did NOT go astray at any point in her life and she shines with a glow only God can put in her being!!
When I ask her the one word to describe her house, she said “especial” / special and her word to describe her home, ” calido” / comfortable like a warm blanket. That concept knits them all together in love and wraps the family unit closely with the cords that bind them, support them and free them to be individuals fulfilling their destiny.
Could you say this about your home?
For a season, it is a joy for me to jump in and participate with this amazing family, each member showing respect to one another and whoever enters their BIG BLUE!!
