Sometimes God puts people in your life, and your reaction is: "And what am I supposed to do with THIS?"
That happened to me this week, and I had to laugh at what God did.
We were given the incredible opportunity to go on a field trip with a local youth group to the city of Granada, several hours away. The night before, we talked about the amazing opportunities to form relationships and build trust among the community. We encouraged the team to split up on the bus, sit with people they didn't know and make new friends. I even jokingly said: "They are stuck on a bus with you, so they can't even run away!" Little did I know how true that would be.
We woke up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 AM for breakfast and were meeting the youth group at 4-ish. Of course we are on Nicaraguan time, so we didn't get on the bus until an hour and a half later. I was the last of our group to get on the bus, so I walked past each of my teammates, continuing on and on…. to the back of the bus. Now I never went to public school, and I never rode the bus, but if the concept of the "cool kids sit in the back of the bus" is indeed true, then it certainly was on this bus ride. It was definitely true in the aspect that it was all of the older kids that thought they were real smooth and made fun of everybody else.
I managed to find an empty row, second to the last, but no sooner had I sat down then Mr. Cool himself plopped down next to me. He had his gym bag and white tank top, his sunglasses, and a gansta doo-rag and wanna-be fedora to complete the look. He scarcely gave me a glance when he took the empty spot. Immediately he started throwing his two cents into every Spanish conversation going on in the back of the bus (in a rather loud voice, mind you), but whenever I tried to start talking to him, he would give me single word answers with very little interest. I didn't get much farther than finding out his name was Manuel and he was 22 years old, and that his body language was saying he CLEARLY wasn't interested in talking to me.
Well, what am I supposed to do with THIS God? I wondered. I'm supposed to be starting friendships, but even though I'm trying really hard with the limited Spanish I have, I'm getting NOTHING in return! He won't even give me the time of day… Punk. And he is supposed to be my seatmate all day! Not only would he hardly speak to me, but I understood enough Spanish to know that him and all of the other punks in the back of the bus were laughing about him sitting so close to a gringa… and the early hour probably didn't help my patience level either.
So I kinda wrote him off. I started chatting with a sweet girl named Anna in the row behind me, and as our conversation progressed, I noticed everybody around listening in. We were on the bus for four and a half hours before we arrived in Granada, but in that time I became friends with Anna, Marvin, Narle, Jonathan, Michael and several others in the surrounding seats. I didn't get much out of Manuel though. Our day was full of several different stops and adventures, including a boat tour of a series of islands on the lake, an outlook with an amazing view, a hiking trail and a trip to the zoo, but what I found more interesting was the progression of my relationship with Manuel. Until lunch, he barely looked at me, but as the day passed words started being exchanged. Not too quickly mind you, first it was just the essentials of standing up and sitting down and moving around in the bus. Eventually though, he would smirk at my laughter and jokes with the other passengers, and we even had a few chuckles in navigating the tight quarters of our row.
His favorite activity appeared to be yelling "Callate!" (shut up!) to his friends several rows away, so finally I managed to communicate to him: "Stop yelling in my ear!" He then thought it was real amusing to start a game with my friend Marvin, who was on the other side of me, and they proceeded to take turns yelling in my ears as I turned from one to the other in exasperation. EVERYBODY on the bus thought that was funny. As our relationship progressed even more, we started a conversation in Spanish. Apparently since we were both 22 and neither of us had significant others, the clear result was that he should be my novio, or boyfriend. He found my protestations very amusing, especially when I said he could be my friend. "Tu novio Y tu amigo," he suggested with a smirk and raised eyebrows. I shut him down very quickly.
My limited Spanish didn't allow for our conversation to go very deep, but I couldn't believe what had happened. Manuel was still very much a punk, but by the end of the day I was sitting among the "cool kids" at the back of the bus, singing worship songs at the top of my lungs: them in Spanish, I in English. The punks that had laughed at me that morning were letting me rest my head on their seat to sleep, and even scolding their friends for bumping me awake. And when we got off the bus, Manuel bid me farewell with a high-five and an "adios, mi amiga."
Never did I think "goodbye, my friend," would sound so sweet. I'm praying for the opportunity to share the Gospel with him in the future, but maybe if I don't get to God will stick him on a bus for a day with someone else who can.
