Found in Translation (11 page)

After what seemed like an eternal pause, Charlie continued. “You know how quickly this project turned around. Even Kim understands that now.”

Although I didn’t think he was trying to be funny in the midst of a potential mutiny, I couldn’t help laughing—first at myself and then at the amazed faces of everyone who didn’t believe I could laugh at myself. I’d show them yet how different I was from the girl they’d come to hate yesterday.

“We didn’t realize the original translators were members of the church at Ciudad de Plata. So when Rob and I became last-minute team leaders, I wrongly assumed—”

“We wrongly assumed …” Rob said.

I admired Rob’s insistence on sharing the heat.

“We wrongly assumed that the change of venue …” Charlie made the mistake of pausing to breathe.

“What’s on the venue for lunch, Charlie?” a naive-sounding female voice said.

Charlie couldn’t continue for the laughter—his own and everyone else’s. Even the take-no-prisoners questioner was laughing. Laughter might help bond this group, but that wouldn’t be enough by itself.

These Christian young adults had no respect for age or rank. They wouldn’t have exempted Jesus from their teasing. He wouldn’t have had any problem dealing with it, though. He probably put up with worse from His disciples every day.

But I wasn’t too shy to pull a punch of my own.

“Gee! Can’t somebody please translate from English into English for that little girl over there?”

Overwhelming waves of laughter surged toward the shore, but this time I wasn’t the tsunami’s target. I was riding the wave, and it felt great.

“Thanks, Kim!” somebody shouted.

“With your permission, I’ll finish explaining,” Charlie began again before anyone could chase that rabbit any further. “So we figured changing our project destination—”

“Is that simple enough for you to understand?” someone yelled to the venue heckler.

“In spite of changing projects and locations,” Charlie said, “we thought we’d still have our original translators. We expected them to show up at orientation when they didn’t meet us at the airport.

“During the orientation meal, Rob called the emergency number for the mission organization we’re working with. They admitted they should have let Rob know we’d need to find translators, but nobody thought of it.”

“We still didn’t know what a pickle we were in,” Rob said. “We assumed someone in Santa María could translate. I knew in my head how small Santa María is—”

“And how uncivilized,” Charlie said.

“So I should have realized I wasn’t going to find a capable bilingualist on every street corner.” He smiled tentatively. “But I didn’t even know Santa María had no street corners—and no streets. I don’t know when I was last so wrong about something so important.”

Charlie took over. “You should’ve seen us trying to invite the villagers to breakfast this morning. We finally gathered them together, but—when we had the blessing—they didn’t realize we were praying. We even tried crossing ourselves, but that didn’t appear to mean anything to them. They just kept on talking amongst themselves.”

Shock showed on everyone’s face. Even the take-no-prisoners questioner’s. He unfolded his arms, bowed his head, and closed his eyes.

I
t makes no sense,” Charlie said, “but the villagers seem to understand why we’re here. Our tools and building supplies didn’t appear to surprise them. Maybe whoever reported their dire circumstances promised to send helpers and supplies. Not knowing is frustrating, but we may not get an answer this side of heaven.”

Rob leaned toward the handheld microphone. “They obviously want to help.”

“Their involvement is imperative,” Charlie said. “Of course, after what they’ve been through, they may not be capable of strenuous work. So we won’t expect more from them than they’re able to do. Rob …?”

“Charlie and I arose at dawn like we were all supposed to do, although I can’t fault anyone who couldn’t make it up then after such a long and trying day yesterday.”

Rob, you’re okay. I’m liking you more all the time.

“Tomorrow is another day, and we’ll all have a fresh chance to get up on time.”

If Rob proved to be another
Gone with the Wind
fan, that would be a big point in his favor.

“Come on, Rob, get to the point!” Charlie said with mock impatience.

Although most of us knew Charlie was teasing and laughed at him, several kids looked terrified. They must have thought the two men were about to argue or maybe get into a fistfight.

“Do you want to tell this?” Rob said, still laughing.

Charlie shook his head. “You tell it. You’re the boss.”

“The point—the bottom line, for those of you planning to be business majors—is we took a quick survey this morning. We confirmed the existence of thirty-eight villagers. Six are between the ages of five and ten. We didn’t see anyone younger than that. Twelve villagers are too old to do construction. Two others appear incapable of helping, even though their ages wouldn’t be prohibitive. We may be able to involve some of them in light tasks if we can find a way to explain our needs.”

In early May, I’d taken a couple of better-than-average photos of some baby robins in a nest in the pyracantha bush beside our front porch. Watching Mom Robin feed her little ones mesmerized me. The babies appeared to eat with gusto, and they didn’t seem to object to being dependent on their mother.

But suppose those babies had been adult birds that were unable to find food or feed themselves? How would they have felt about being dependent on stronger, healthier birds—if other birds were even willing to help care for them?

Was that how the more helpless villagers would feel about not being able to share in the rebuilding?

“In short,”—Charlie spoke without the microphone until Rob held it up in front of him—“eighteen villagers appear capable of helping. So, between you, them, and us, that makes, uh, 164 laborers.”

“One hundred sixty-five! Don’t forget the Holy Spirit!”

I wasn’t sure who’d said that, but she sounded amazingly like the ditsy venue girl. If so, she was a lot smarter than she’d let on.

Yesses and amens filled the air, and the villagers glanced at one another with concerned faces about why we’d suddenly begun applauding, whistling, and whooping at the volume of thunder. Maybe they didn’t use such forms of approval.

“You’re spot-on about that. The Holy Spirit is the Big Boss here.”

Rob took the microphone back.

“We count eighteen distinct family units in Santa María, but we see the remnants of many more houses than that. We assume the storm killed a number of villagers—perhaps even whole families.”

We got quiet fast. The time for humor had passed.

“We have thirteen days—”

“Really just twelve, because we leave for home early that last day,” Charlie clarified.

“Twelve days in which 164 people, almost entirely novices, will build eighteen brand-new residences with major and presumably miraculous assistance from the Holy Spirit.”

As the realities of our assignment finally struck home, leaving us speechless, I suspected that most of us were groaning inwardly. As apprehensive as I was, I tried replacing my silent curses with a prayer for strength, patience, and—above all else—the will to obey.

God wanted me here. I believed that more today than yesterday. And yet the task looked more impossible in the morning sunlight than it had in last night’s darkness.

“Of course, these houses won’t be big,” Rob said, “or fancy. The villagers didn’t live in mansions before, and they won’t now. The most important thing is getting everyone inside before the rains come. We’ll use the existing dirt foundations—they don’t have block foundations like ours—and place a simple one-room cottage on each one. Picture a fair-sized, single car garage if that tells you anything. Anyone who’s attended summer youth camp has probably slept in similar housing and hated it.”

I smiled. Other heads nodded.

Rob and Charlie went on to describe how plain these cottages would be. They would have closeable doors a generous Jewish competitor had contributed, but no windows; plywood floors, but no interior or exterior paint; and a few shingles to keep out the rain, but no insulation.

“Bringing electricity and plumbing to Santa María isn’t our job,” they reminded us. “The villagers will be thrilled with whatever we provide. From what little we can figure out, their former houses may not have been as nice as these new ones.”

Memories of the migrant camp ran through my head. These simple cottages would have seemed palatial there.

“You’ve heard the term ‘bare bones’? Well, that’s what we’re doing. If we have time for minor improvements, great. But we can’t overemphasize the importance of getting everyone inside again—”

“And keeping the outdoors outdoors,” a thoughtful male voice said from across the mess tent.

The team wasn’t shy about saying, “Hallelujah!” and “Praise the Lord!” Skepticism and uncertainty gave way to optimism and excitement. If experienced builders like Charlie and Rob—and especially God, the Builder of the Universe—believed we could do it, our only choice was … do it.

The project that had sounded humanly impossible minutes earlier seemed miraculously possible now. I thanked God for the millionth time since last night that I didn’t take the easy way out by going home.

When Rob and Charlie started talking again, I reached into my purse and dug around for the nail clippers. I always carried them for cutting loose threads. I was a fanatic about getting rid of those danglers, and I never took a chance by just pulling one out.

My favorite clothes might be little more than loose, dangling threads by the time I left Santa María, but that was okay. Santa María’s lack of a place to shop didn’t matter. I could do that at home.

Pleased and amazed that I wasn’t letting my vanity interfere, I attacked my fingernails with newfound motivation. Aleesha raised her eyebrows and smiled. She was probably the only person who noticed. That’s the way I wanted it. I wasn’t cutting my nails for show, but for doing my fair share of work.

W
e’re going to divide into teams, and each one will build a cottage from the ground up. Each team will have a captain, selected for his or her carpentry and woodworking experience or—in many cases—proven leadership skills. Rob and I will be floaters, keeping you team leaders on target and assuring ourselves that the captains have everyone else under control, too.”

“How many of you know what a plumb line is?” Charlie asked.

Almost every hand went up. I giggled at seeing the villagers raise their hands—just as if they’d understood the question, too.

“Good. Rob and I are going to be the plumb lines that keep the team captains straight. They’ll be plumb lines to keep everyone else straight. Rob and I will rely on the Holy Spirit to keep us straight.”

That made sense to me, and—from the smiles I saw—to everyone but the villagers.

Rob and Charlie would directly oversee anything requiring close precision—installing the doors, for example—and doublecheck every stage of our work before we did something so wrong it couldn’t be undone.

They promised not to micromanage, though. (I had to ask Aleesha what that meant.) Not as long as the team captains were honest enough to ask for help when they needed it.

“You’re not going to do a perfect job,” Rob said. “Don’t expect to. You’re unskilled workers God has called according to His purposes. You’re answerable to Him and Him alone, and He expects your best—no more, no less.”

“Building houses that will stand for years is more important than making them look good,” Charlie pointed out.

The two men would leave hand tools and leftover materials for the villagers to do additional building if they wanted, but they wished they could leave detailed, written instructions as well. The materials and way of building things were probably different than what the villagers were accustomed to.

Of course, at this stage of our relationship with the villagers, we didn’t know if they could read or write. And there was still that problem of the language barrier.

“After dividing into teams, we’ll clear away those remains we mentioned. Then we’ll start building the modules we’ll make the houses out of. We have one single cottage design, drawn in detail on the back of a paper napkin.”

Not everyone realized Rob was teasing. Although he was the senior builder, he didn’t seem quite as outgoing as Charlie or as inclined to joke around. But he had his moments.

“I’m just teasing about the napkin, guys, but I’m dead serious about standardization. We need to cut each piece of wood precisely enough to fit any house equally well. That means taking time, being careful, and double-checking every step. If we start by constructing our building blocks, assembling the houses will be like spreading melted butter on hot bread.”

I hadn’t heard that expression in ages. How long ago did my grandma die? I was in elementary school.

“Guys and girls, you know how Rob is ….” Charlie said, barely able to fight back a laugh.

The team members who’d feared a disagreement between Rob and Charlie earlier were the first to laugh at them now. No one could resist joining them.

“In brief, you’ll build eighteen back walls, eighteen front walls, and thirty-six side walls. We cut some of the bigger pieces ahead of time, but you’ll still do an awful lot of measuring, sawing, sanding, and hammering the next few days. You—”

“You know Charlie,” Rob said. He wore a mischievous grin. “He means the skeletons of all those walls. We couldn’t lift them if we assembled them completely. Oh, and Charlie was going to let the villagers drown when it rains. He forgot about pre-building sections for eighteen roofs.”

“Okay, smarty-pants!” Charlie roared with laughter at his own oversights. “Let’s divide into teams now, and then we’ll decide who does what.”

Before he could proceed, a female voice spoke from somewhere to my left.

“So will this be like the ‘barn raisings’ you see in movies about rural people?”

“Very much so. Let’s divide up.”