Chris Connelly had shared with me about the upcoming visit with Flor. I knew that she was a young girl who had been badly burned when she was an infant. I also knew that Flor has a very special place in Chris' heart. But nothing could've prepared me for this visit.
As our van pulled up to the house, the blue steel door opened & there stood Flor, her mother & her younger sister. They stepped out into the bright sun to greet us as we were making way out of the van. Our group was greeted with a gift of hugs, words of welcome & gentle kisses on our cheeks.
We entered their house & found ourselves in a room with two double beds lining one wall & on the other wall, a table & wardrobe that created a small walkway in the middle of the room. Flor sat down on one of the beds with Chris on one side, me on the other & Monica (a student from Miami) squatting down in front of Flor in order to translate for Chris. The rest of our group formed somewhat of a semicircle around as Flor's little sister nuzzled her way in beside Chris.
(I need to add that for Chris, the purpose of a visit is not only about being in their home but also about discovering the joys & sorrows, the hopes & dreams, the pain & happiness of their lives. This type of visit cannot be rushed or orchestrated.)
I've learned that there is far more to translation than just getting the words right. That at its best, translation conveys more than even language. It creates a space for relationship. For emotions to be felt. For the unstated to be heard. Translation at its best is spiritual.
As I sat there, I was a witness to the spiritual.
Flor had indeed been horribly burned. The right side of her face had been disfigured including the loss of an ear which she kept discreetly hidden by the thick blackness of her hair.
What she could not hide was her right arm burned most severely from the bicep all the way down to what remained of her hand. Even with multiple surgeries scar tissue still covered her arm, raised and grooved like the ravines cutting through Alto Cayma. A permanent reminder of a trauma of which I'm not sure how much she remembers, but certainly one she'll never be able to forget.
I watched and listened as Chris talked and Monica translated. There was an innocence in how Flor would answer and smile as Chris joked with her by pulling her little sister into the conversation with questions about annoying friends and living together as sisters. Flor would talk with her hands and occasionally pull them up to cover her face, burying her head into the crook of Chris' arm. It was not so much out of embarrassment, but the playfulness of friends who are getting reacquainted.
It was beautiful to watch Flor's entire face light up as she explained to us about her Barbies, shifting the boxed dolls in her lap holding them with her left hand and using her right arm for balance. Pointing to each doll, Flor would tell us after what surgery she'd received them until she finally put the boxes neatly back on the headboard of the bed. As she glided back toward Chris, she paused and opened the double doors of her wardrobe to reveal her most prized doll. A gift after her most recent surgery. The doll was clothed in a white gown visible through the clear plastic window of the unopened box. Pristinely secured, I imagined the doll to be what Flor most wished for herself -- an arm without scars, a hand no longer deformed, and a face unblemished by the tragedy of fire.
I was amazed at the naturalness of the conversation as one question opened another aspect of Flor's daily life. With vulnerability Flor told us about the latest surgery which was performed to give her arm more flexibility. A couple of times she'd point to her mother to fill in certain medical details.
As Flor's arm rested on her own lap, Monica stopped translating, leaned in closely, and gently traced her own fingers across the red scarred ridges. Monica & Flor now talked like two sisters who needed the time to catch up with each other. The room seemed to disappear leaving just them. Intimate. Unashamed.
As I sat there, I was a witness to the spiritual reality of translation.
As we were preparing to leave, I gave Flor's mother what I thought was a parting embrace. But, as I hugged her there seemed to be something more that needed to be said. I stepped back still keeping one hand gently on her shoulder. That's when I saw it. A mother's heart filled with pain and tears slowly running down her cheeks. With tears came words. Words that opened up wounds of how Flor was being treated by other children.
I called to Chris, Victor, and one of our translators (Genesis) to help make sense of what Flor's mother was telling me. As her words were translated, I found myself crying.
Flor didn't share with us the hateful things other children were saying to her. She was being called a monster on the playground and shunned by even those who were considered friends.
In truth, Flor's only true friend was another girl who was struggling with cancer. (Here's a sermon waiting to be preached.)
Chris asked Flor's mother if she would like for him to talk with her about how she's being treated by the other children. He was given permission and once again Monica began to translate.
Chris knelt before Flor and spoke truth to her. The truth of God's love for her. The small-minded children. Chris told Flor how beautiful she is. How all of his friends comment on her beauty. (Chris' wife Bettye called and on speaker phone she reinforced this truth to this beautiful girl.)
This is the moment that I saw strength in this young girl. Strength from God. Resolve to push forward. Inner beauty that matched her outer beauty. I wondered what God had planned for Flor. Something big. Something amazing.
When we left and loaded back into the van, no one said anything. Not a word as we travelled to our next visit.
I was weighed down with pain and sadness for Flor. A deep compassion.
I found myself in the van with Chris and Monica. Thank God we bore the heaviness of this pain together for I felt on the verge of being crushed.
I am certain that God was very sad, too.
Monica had worn a stunning bracelet everyday. A bracelet in which the words of the Lord's Prayer engraved and circled around the face of a metal disk with the AMEN in the middle. The bracelet straps were blue. The bracelet was no longer on Monica's wrist, because she had given it to Flor as a constant reminder of God's love for her in a world of hate and stupidity.
The three of us sat in the van as I held Chris' hand.
Perhaps, we were being translated into the language of God for Flor. For one another. For the world.
Amen. Let it be so.
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