The adage that it’s better to give than to receive might need to be changed to it is easier to give than to receive. When one gives freely, one occupies a position of power and control. There is a clarity to the relationship because the message accompanying the gift is clear to the giver. When one receives from someone giving freely, a tension arises along with slough of questions: What have I done to deserve this? Do I owe something? Am I imposing myself on the giver?
Our three nights with the same family were filled with joy, laughter, and a profound appreciation for the sacred value of hospitality, practiced so well by our Guatemalan hosts. After their long days of work, our hosts swing by our worksite to pick us up and shuttle us home like older brothers and sisters taking us home from school. And this is what they call us: the sisters and brothers. On a video call with her daughter, who is studying at university in the city of Huehuetenango, my host said, “The brother is here. I want to introduce you to him.” After a few minutes in which my new sister got herself a little more put together to meet her mother’s guest, even this young woman, who I would not meet in person, welcomed me with happiness and gratitude for coming to her town and sleeping in her house.
Relationships are built on stories. There are always funny stories from these visits. There are awkward moments from minor misunderstandings. A missionary was taken to the wrong place with the same name one morning, arriving late to start the day’s work. There are amusing anecdotes from silly situations. One pair of missionaries spent the night trying to shoo kittens who kept coming into their room from various open windows that needed to be closed to avoid another invasion. These little anecdotes become the basis of memories that forever link us to people and place.
Tuesday night—the last with our families in the central town in La Libertad—was filled with many more stories. As we’d grown more comfortable with our hosts, and they with us, many of us were taken to see new sites around town or meet other family members. Elizabeth Wellendorf, from St. Frances Cabrini, and Jackie Schuler, from St. Charles Borromeo, started their home stay on Sunday night looking slightly sheepishly at sharing the only bed their hosts had to offer. On Tuesday night, they were smiling widely as they shared the back of a pickup zooming up the main dtreet in town off to another adventure with their family.
Once we start to let go of the doubts and worries caused by opening ourselves to receive, space is created to fill our hearts with love and joy that can then be spread others. It is only in this receiving love that we’d ever have enough to give to someone else. Our prayer is that the memories shared and stories written with our hosts here in La Libertad will encourage us to seek new life-giving moments of receiving and giving when we return to the United States. It will be in these moments that we might start to call our neighbors by the title we’ve received after only a few days here: brother and sister.
