Te daré lo mejor de mi vida

It was just lightly drizzling—or “spitting,” as Emily says they call it in Washington—as I walked back from church a few minutes ago. The church has outgrown its building and the extra room that it’s renting, so they’re constructing a new building with a capacity for 1,000 people. To raise money for the project we shared a meal of typical foods from many of the countries represented in the congregation: Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and the United States, courtesy of the tomato soup (Gail Rohland’s recipe) that I made. I went grocery shopping yesterday and made the soup last night at the home of one of the leaders of the young adults’ group before seven of us girls went to the movies to see ‘Up In the Air’ (which was ok, but nothing more than that).

By the time I left the church after the meal and the talking and cleaning up it was after 4 pm. I walked back toting my overloaded backpack, container of leftover tomato soup, and the umbrella which was lent to me by one of the volunteers from ‘Solidarios’ (the government-funded organization which sends volunteers out into the city for three hours every weekday night to give coffee and cookies to the homeless people). I stopped twice to reread and take notes on Don Quijote de la Mancha in preparation for my exam on Tuesday, but when it started to rain I decided to head home.

As I neared the intersection where I needed to turn from San Jacinto onto Lopez de Gomara I met the homeless man who I frequently see shuffling along on the sidewalk in that area. He’s probably 50-60 years old and has a head full of disheveled gray hair which is almost as long as the beard that covers half of his chest.

“¿Un poco de comer?” (A little to eat?) he asked me as I neared him, motioning towards the container of tomato soup.

He had a point. What better way to help a homeless person than with some extra food? But I didn’t have anything with which to serve him and I didn’t want to give him the container which Veronica had just loaned me. So instead I wrinkled up my face a bit, said an “Ayyy” of apology, and kept walking.

As I did so I was reminded of a question that haunted me a few days ago: “Did Jesus ever walk past homeless people?” I decided that it would make a good Facebook status, and began to mentally edit the best way to phrase the question for my post.

“Rachel Jonker wonders, ‘Did Jesus ever walk past homeless people?’”

I figure he must have. The Bible never says that he healed everyone. But it also never says that I am excused from expressing compassion when I don’t have a way to serve tomato soup.

As I crossed onto Lopez de Gomara I realized that I was singing the song which has been stuck in my head since we sang it last night at the young adults group.

“Necesito decirte, lo que siento ahora.

(I need to tell you what I feel right now.)

No sé cómo expresarme, ante tu hermosura.

(I don’t know how to express myself before your beauty.)

Te adoraré, mi rey eterno.

(I will adore you, my eternal King.)

Te alabaré, eres todo para mí.

(I will praise you, you are everything to me.)

Te daré, lo mejor de mi vida.

(I will give you the best of my life.)

Te daré, lo mejor cada día.

(I will give you the best every day.”

As I stepped up onto the curb I hit a mental blockade: I had just walked past a homeless man and now I was promising God that I would give him the best of my life—every day. It’s one thing to promise to do that in general with the big things, but I had just said that I was going to do it every day. Clearly, if I am going to give God the best of my life I have to give him the best of every day. But then that applies to today too.

“Oh dear,” I thought. “Now what do I do?”

Well, I kept walking. I tried to tell myself that I’d come back some other day when I was more prepared. But I couldn’t shake that irksome voice which kept telling me that I knew better than that. I recognize that voice more often now, perhaps because I listen to it more than I used to. Before I only associated it with times when I knew that I should do something but rationalized my way out of it. I put my rationalization powers in full force and nearly persuaded myself that it was a crazy to turn around and try to give tomato soup to a homeless man when I didn’t have anything with which to serve it. I wondered if I would feel justified in walking past Jesus because I didn´t have a spoon with which to serve him. But I kept walking, non

But then when I was half of the remaining distance home I remembered that I had an extra bocadillo (sandwich) and an orange from my señora in my backpack which I hadn’t eaten because I ate the meal at the church. That settled it. So I set down my heavy load, dug around until I found the food, and walked back in the direction from which I had come.

I stopped at two bars before I found one which had a plastic cup for the tomato soup. My back, neck and shoulders whimpered a bit about having to carry my pack that much further, but my resolute spirit shushed them. I was at peace because I knew that I was doing the right thing.

I found him a short distance up San Jacinto, closer that I had expected.

“Hola” I told him, “Vuelvo con un vaso para servirte la sopa. Lo siento que no tuve algo antes. Mira, y aquí hay una bolsa con un bocadillo y una fruta que también puedes tener.” (“I’m back with a cup to serve you the soup. Sorry that I didn’t have something before. Look, and here is a bag with a sandwich and a piece of fruit that you can have too.”)

He took the bag in silence and I set the Tupperware container on top of one of the ubiquitous lamp-post mounted garbage cans and dipped into it with the plastic Cruzcampo beer cup. He shuffled over and accepted the cup with a grimy hand with long yellow fingernails. As tipped his head back to drink it some spilled out of the cup and onto his chest, leaving behind a red trail in his thick beard next to the yellowish one which I could only guess to be snot. It was, quite frankly, disgusting.

He was quite a contrast from Lucian, the Romanian homeless man who “lives” on the sidewalk next to a bank on a side street very near Avenida Republica Argentina, which I take for most of my twenty-minute walk to school every day. We visited Lucian two weeks ago with ‘Solidarios,’ and I’ve stopped to talk to him a few times since then. He’s conscious of keeping himself and his area clean, because he says that the people like it better that way. He sees it as his way of earning the ‘regalos’ (gifts) that they’ve given him: his stocking cap, thick winter coat, shoes, sleeping bag, sleeping cushion, and blanket.

Last Monday on my way back from school for lunch he invited me to sit on his mat and chat for a while. I listened for about fifteen minutes as he told me a little bit about his life. His Spanish is limited, but he gets his message across. Honestly, it’s easier for me to understand him than most native Spaniards. Lucian came here in 2004 and lived in an apartment with a Ukrainian for a while. Even though they didn’t speak the same languages, they could still understand each other. For some reason (that I don’t know) things didn’t go well, and he ended up in the street. In 2005 his passport was stolen and he now only has a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy (which he showed me) in which his face is no longer discernible. The police (who frequently request identification from people—especially suspected illegal immigrants—in the street) tell him that for this reason it’s no good, but he has nothing else.

One of the people who have helped him is a lawyer who works nearby. This lawyer searched on the internet and found Lucian’s son’s telephone number, so the day before Lucian had called his son in Romania from a payphone on the corner.

“Ahora, yo soy abuelo,” (Now, I’m a grandpa) he told me with as tears of joy filled his eyes and ran down his face. Two years ago his son’s wife had a little girl, and Lucian just found out about it this week.

I nearly cried with him. “¿Cómo se llama?” But he hadn’t thought to ask the little girl’s name, so he didn’t know.

In the midst of his circumstances, Lucian is filled with hope. He told me that his daughter, who works in England, wants to come visit him next summer. There’s even a possibility that his son will come with his wife and daughter. The lawyer friend is going to try to help Lucian get his picture taken so that he can apply for a new passport.

But to my surprise, he told me that he doesn’t want to go back to Romania. Why? Well, since Romania joined the European Union it has had a lot of immigration from the East from poorer Asian countries, so now the wages have dropped because of a surplus of labor. That makes it difficult for the Romanians who were accustomed to earning more money. “Y también, la gente allí no le ayuda nada.” (“Plus, the people there don’t help you at all.”) Here in Sevilla there’s the Red Cross and the churches, including the one to which he goes everyday to get lunch and a sandwich for dinner.

“¿Pero no hay Iglesias también en Romania?” (“But aren’t there also churches in Romania?”) I asked.

Yes, there are churches, he said. But they’re orthodox churches which he says don’t help people like him. “El cura, con todo el dinero” (The priest, with all the money.”), he said, motioning as if to stuff a handful of cash into his pocket.

“Ayy, pero este no es lo que Jesucristo quiere que haga su iglesia. Él quiere que ayudemos a los demás,” (“Ahh, but that’s not what Jesus Christ wants his church to do. He wants us to help others.”) I responded. And even as I said it, I wondered how much I could learn from those simple words. All the same, I was overjoyed that he identified the church here as a supplier of active compassion. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be” I thought as I walked home for lunch.

Back on San Jacinto with my tomato soup, I noticed a man watching us from behind the counter in the bar which we were standing in front of, and wondered what he was thinking. In the interest of making others think better of this homeless man, I contemplated stepping inside to ask for some napkins so that he could at least wipe the clumps out of his facial hair. But I resisted the urge, because I figured that telling him that he had to cleanup wasn’t a good representation of the unconditional love of Jesus. In fact, as I stood there watching him drink my tomato soup I wondered if Jesus looked anything like this man. He almost certainly looked more like him that he did like me.

“¿Cómo te llamas?” he asked me.

“Raquel” I told him, and found out in turn that his name is “Jixobo” (or at least something similar to that).

“¿Cuánto llevas aquí?” I asked. Twenty years, he told me, and all of them in Sevilla.

“Soy de Yugoslavia. ¿Y tú, de Francia?”

“No, de los Estados Unidos,” I answered, wishing that I didn’t have to admit it.

“Ahh. Tu eres Americana,” He smiled, and I grimaced slightly. “Hay muchas cosas buenas alli, ¿No?” (“There are a lot of good things there, right?”)

“Pues, hay algunas, si. Pero también hay algunas malas.” (“Well, there are some, yes. But there are also some bad things.”) But I could tell from his tomato-plastered smile that he wasn’t convinced.

It’s not that I hate my country; it’s just that I hate when I meet poor people who aspire to come to it. Sometimes I get the impression that they think that everyone in America is healthy, wealthy, happy, and wise. (But considering the image that’s portrayed by the film industry, I can’t really blame them for thinking so.) It perturbs me when people idolize that lifestyle and think that money can make you happy. Sure, it may be a necessary ingredient to survival in modern society. But beyond that, I’m convinced that almost nothing could be farther from the truth.

Earlier today while waiting in line for lunch at church Patricia (one of the worship leaders) and a man from Ecuador asked me how much I pay for university in the United States. They were fairly satisfied when I told them that it’s about $3,000 a year out of my pocket after scholarships and loans, but then they wanted to know how much it actually costs. I bit my tongue and waffled a bit before admitting that tuition is $25,000 per year. I could tell from their “Whew!” in response that I needed to explain that most public universities aren’t that expensive. I decided not to explain that that $25,000 doesn’t include the nearly $10,000 more for room, board, and miscellaneous fees.

On Friday night Nellie, José and Jorge joined me for a leisurely hour-long walk back to Triana from the coffee group in Inés’ house in the Macarena. José was talking about how much money he earned when he was in the U.S. (New York and Connecticut) from 2004-2006 working hanging drywall—$500 per week. In response Jorge whistled, and I thought about when I was younger and found out that my Dad Americans would consider that a piddly salary. They wanted to know how much money one could earn in the United States, and weren’t satisfied with my “It depends.” They asked for specifics, so I estimated as well as I could what an employee in McDonalds or a clothing store would earn.

But then as soon as I could, I changed the subject. It makes me uncomfortable when people associate me with the wealth that they don’t have. I don’t want to be rich; or perhaps I just don’t want to admit that I already am. I don’t know how to respond when someone tells me that his life goal is to come to the United States, because I was born with that citizenship by no merit of my own.

I don’t want to be an ambassador from America. I want to be an ambassador of Christ.

So that’s why I explained to Jixobo before I left that I had come back because of that song which was stuck in my head.

“Te daré, lo mejor de mi vida. Te daré, lo mejor cada día.”

“I was thinking that if I’m going to give my best to God every day, I need to start by doing it today.”

I’m not sure he understood what I meant, but he thanked me again anyway. I said goodbye and headed toward home, this time scarcely mindful of the burden on my back.