LOOKING FOR LOVE

Imagine trying to explain the good news of Jesus without using the word 'love'! It is not possible, is it? For several years, Helen and Ray Elliot had been living with the Ixil people of Nabaj, Guatemala, learning their language, but they had been unable to find an Ixil word for love…until tragedy struck! Fireworks, stored for a carnival, were accidentally set off and in the explosion two boys were badly burned. One boy was Indian, and the other a Spanish Guatemalan. Helen was called, and arrived to find that the parents had applied motor oil and wood ash to the burns. She had no medical training, but she prayed. Then she rushed off to town and bought penicillin and morphine. She cleaned the wounds and applied bandages. Soon after she had left, the local traditional healer arrived. He was angry that someone had usurped his role, and he tore off the bandages, breaking open the wounds. When Helen returned, he was calling on the spirits to discover which one had to be appeased. Helen, convinced that the two sorts of prayer and the two sorts of medicine would not mix, challenged the parents to choose. The healer was furious, but he had to leave as the parents decided to try Helen's way. She prayed and patiently tended the boy's wounds, treating both with equal care, although the local people expected her to favour the Spanish boy. On the twentieth day Helen arrived to find an old Indian lady watching them. This particular day she treated the Indian boy first. The old woman was deeply touched and said, “See how she treats him, such shon.” Shon? What was that? As Helen began to realize the meaning of the word she wept - 'a love that gives without expecting.' Here at last was a way to tell the Ixil people that God loved them all, equally, totally and undeservedly! [Wycliffe News, June 1999].