Julio
It has been a while since I wrote in my blog. Actually, I haven’t
written for more than six years. Not that I had nothing to write about, the opposite
is true but maybe it is more my doubt about who to write for.
And then for some reason it changed this morning. At the end
of a WhatsApp conversation. Just these words,” I forgot to tell you, Julio died”
Now for most of you that follow our mission work in Haiti, this
will not ring a bell. Julio was an unknown person in a world that looks without
much mercy upon a man who is mentally challenged. To be honest I have never
really understood what the man’s problem was. There was something wrong in his head
but what, I don’t know. Then again, aren’t we all somewhat challenged? He would
just pop up in these places like church or on the road, at the gate of the
orphanage begging the guard to let him in and then the guard would come ask me
if I was ok with him coming to see me. As if they did that for anyone else. He
would always look at me with what I would call puppy eyes and have these soft-spoken,
long-drawn-out conversations sharing the figments in his head and asking me
advice on what to do. He came out one day and surprised me with his request to
consider him for the position of principal for our school. I did not see that
coming and had to use my best words to not hurt him while letting him know that
was not an option. Another time he haunted me for a week to have Corn Flakes
flown in from the US because he loved them so much after someone had him taste
them. He came to tell me that people wanted to kill him or at least was
convinced they were after him. He told me he had lived in the US for a while,
but I was never able to get that confirmed. Yet in all his conversations he
never raised his voice or uttered an angry word. He would stand up at a church
service and recite a song or a poem and many people would laugh at what he’d
say. He always filled me with intense sadness for him and it hurt me to see him
treated like a pariah.
And now he’s dead. From what I hear he was buried like Eleanor
Rigby who died and was buried along with her name, nobody came. His cousin went
to town and bought a casket. He was buried in the cemetery without anyone
there. No service, no funeral, no fanfare. All on the day he died.
Thinking about this reminded me of this story that Jesus
told according to Luke 16, vs 19-31. The story of the rich man and the poor
Lazarus. Lazarus got carried away by the angels, sort of like Julio did. The
rich man had a funeral. He was buried, it says. Probably had the pomp and
circumstance accustomed to a person of his standing. Of course, I know it’s a parable.
But the message to me today is that we have the poor Lazari
( is that the plural of Lazarus?) of this world around us and we have a chance
to show them love. We often rather focus on the powerful ones and their funerals.
I have seen pompous funerals in the same village. We have plenty of those
around where we live. What are we doing about the poor ones? Maybe their
message is way more important than we think. Maybe they show us about a world
we simply cannot see. Yet! Jesus says whatever you did for one of these my
brothers, you did for me. Not a chance we really want to miss.
That’s what I wanted to share with you.
Hein
