Seeking relief from the sweltering heat of the southern Mexico jungle, I fished a bottle of soda from the tub of ice water that the missionary had placed in the shade under the thatch of the churchyard. In the neighboring yard 30 feet away, a tiny old woman bent to feed her pigs and chickens.
She squinted into the sunlight for a look at the norteamericanos who had come at their own expense to her remote village to help the iglesia where exuberant Sunday crowds had been overflowing the tiny church building. A toothless smile brightened her wrinkled brown face. I smiled back.
Most of the men, women and youth on our mission team were busy laying a wall of handmade bricks, shoveling sand, and mixing cement in a wheelbarrow. Knowing we had come not only to work but also to witness, I hopped over a puddle where ducklings had been bathing and stepped across to the neighbor lady's yard to greet her. Ouch! My leg scraped against a line of rusty barbed wire hidden in the lush foliage that edged her yard.
When the Mexican grandmother saw the long scratch on my leg bleeding slightly, she rattled off a string of words in Spanish, and motioned for me to follow her into the house. Ducks and chickens clucked and waddled after us into the dirt-floor shack. The woman showed me her family photos pinned to one board wall. She smiled proudly and told me about each one as if she thought I could understand. Then she led me past her kitchen which consisted of an open-fire stove and a table holding a well-used corn grinder and tortilla pan. Finally, she took me to a dark corner where, beneath a canopy of mosquito netting, her bed stood.
From under the pillow she drew a plastic bottle of clear liquid and a cloth. Removing the lid, she lifted the bottle for me to smell. She watched for my reaction with concern in her intense, black eyes. I couldn't read the label on the bottle. But I recognized the pungent smell of rubbing alcohol, which immediately evoked comforting images of home and sanitation.
The barefoot old woman poured the antiseptic on the cloth, and I steeled myself as she applied it directly to my wound.
It stung, but I gasped, "Gracias."
Far from the comparative luxury of my nice home, I was in her home as a guest with a need. The kindness she showed me was as recognizable as the smell of the alcohol she determinedly dabbed on my leg. Somehow her simple act of kindness helped me deal better with the dirt, heat and culture shock.
Two years later, I remembered the old Mexican woman. The tables had turned, and I was the one offering hospitality to an international guest -- a Japanese student. At first she appeared shy, tense and homesick. To her, everything in America felt oversized and strange, including our large yard and dogs. To my chagrin, the flea bites that flared on the smooth skin of her arms were big also. The bites itched and bothered her.
Wanting to alleviate her discomfort, I got out a bottle of rubbing alcohol. First I let her smell the bottle. Her wary expression changed to a smile of recognition, and she named it in Japanese. As I swabbed alcohol on the itching welts, she thanked me. From then on, she seemed more responsive to my efforts at hospitality. She attended church with us. Though Christianity was unfamiliar to her, she bowed her head during our family prayers.
I thought of the barefoot old Mexican woman in her crude jungle dwelling and realized how much she and I have in common. Each of us has opportunities to show God's love -- to reach out to others different from ourselves with tangible expressions of kindness and healing.
It is comforting to find something as familiar as rubbing alcohol. It smells the same anyplace in the world, no matter what language is on the label. Love feels the same all over the world as well.
Copyright ©1994, 2006 Catherine Lawton