The Christmas Armadillo

 It’s become a little bit of a tradition for my wife and I.  

 At the end of our team’s week in El Salvador; having finished building homes in small, rural, economically poor communities, we visit a local market.  It had been a few years since we’ve been there on the front edge of Christmas season.  However, for many years, we would walk and weave our way through the colours, smells and invitations of tightly packed vendors, and purchase an item or two for our “manger scene”.  This year, we came upon something neither of us could remember seeing before: The Christmas Armadillo. 

Without hesitation, and with no bartering, we paid the full $1US asking price. Wrapped in current week newsprint, we brought him home. Protected on the long flight home, and undeclared into our home country, he now has his spot, right beside the leathered skin Mary and Joseph, and baby Jesus – all of whom are under the watchful presence of an angel, who brings a peacefulness to the other farm animals gathered nearby. 

 

Don’t remember the armadillo in your Christmas story?  Don’t worry, few do. He’s often forgotten, neglected and ignored. His spot is often substituted by the lavish gifts of kings and the ornately dressed wise men, even though they weren’t actually present on that Holy Night.  Even an innkeeper gets written into our version of the Story, but the armadillo, it’s like he wasn’t even there. 

 

The armadillo is known in many places as a “poor man’s pork”. Curiously, in El Salvador, we have been invited to such a dinner in a community in which we were building homes. And this is why the armadillo is part of our manger scene.  He reminds me of the “poor”. More importantly this multi-shielded guy whose name literally means, “Little armored one”, reminds us that God holds the “poor” in high esteem, he desires to protect them and help them. There is a special relationship that God has with the “poor” which counters the attendance/performance based religion which occupies much of our Western culture, blinding us to those in need, domestically and globally. 

 

It continues to be a life changing experience to get small glimpses at this, and to listen to short testimonials of just how God is near to those whom we would often neglect or ignore. On this last trip, through Shelter, our team consisted of 25 people. Sixteen of those people were first timers, willing to enter into a cultural/economic world that is vastly different than their own.  Nine of those twenty five, were highschool students.  It was an incredible week! In our 8 to 9 months of preparation, we rarely talked about the structures we would build. We focused instead on the challenge of having the humility to enter into the circumstances of the families we would meet, to listen to their stories, and to learn from them about the faithfulness of God.  If we could do this, then our lives would be changed, transformed by something only God could do. 

 

They did it! We did it! (You can read some of their experiences here). 

 

For instance:  When we travel to El Salvador we build in communities that many wouldn’t stumble into. However, we meet people we hope never to forget.

 

Like Maria and Jose, a couple that our build team met on Tuesday morning.

 

The houses provide protection from the torrents of rain. In the cold of the rainy season, to be relieved from the dripping and dampness means that they are in better health. Children miss less school, and adults can work more consistently. 

 

In fact that’s just the way, Maria answered, when we asked her the difference that the new house would make for her and her family. She conveyed how her two little girls were continually asking when the new house might come so that they wouldn’t get wet when they were sleeping. 

 

As Maria spoke, it was hard not to notice that the way in which Jose held his one daughter was  different, it was protective yet loving, and he looked at his other daughter in the same way. So we asked him, what does a new house, as a father with two young girls, mean for you. His head bowed, his shoulders heaved, and his arms wrapped his little girl just a little tighter as tears started to eek out of the corners of his eyes. 

 

“They will be safe. They will be protected.”

 

For 20 years they have been together. For 12 years they have lived in this community. For all those years they have been praying to God for a safe and secure home for their family. 

 

God sent us to deliver that message. And those little girls can be raised in relative safety to fulfill their God given desires, as we continue to pray for them. It doesn’t mean that their daily grind of rising early to work hard for $300-400 per month won’t end.  

What it does mean is that they know, more than ever, that God provides a place of security and safety, even in the midst of trouble. They, are protected by the armour of God.

 

Or like this…

 

In Isaiah 26:3-6, notice who God chooses to be on the victory side of justice. It is not the rich, it is not the authoritative, it is not a president, or a prime minister, a dictator, a governor, a ruler, or an emperor. It is the poor, the oppressed who will win the day: 

 

 “You will keep in perfect peace

    those whose minds are steadfast,

    because they trust in you.

 Trust in the Lord forever,

    for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.

He humbles those who dwell on high,

    he lays the lofty city low;

he levels it to the ground

    and casts it down to the dust.

Feet trample it down—

    the feet of the oppressed,

    the footsteps of the poor.

 

When we align ourselves with the poor, we enter into a place that our hearts long for: a place of shalom. Shalom, is the word most often translated as peace, in our English bibles. It means completeness, wholeness, safety, contentment. It is a word of relationship that extends to us from the character of God. If you’re longing for a peaceful place, God is inviting you to experience shalom. 

 

Wherever there is trouble, there can be peace, the shalom of God: the presence of Holy Spirit guiding us according to promises of God, fulfilled through Jesus Christ. 

 

One of our teams built a home with a woman named Rosa, and her family. Their time with them was transformative for them, and for the rest of us, as we listened to their stories. Not every encounter is like this, however, what happened here reflects the promises of God, and the hope we have in Jesus. 

 

Rosa spoke about how their family was being extorted by gangs, having to pay them a monthly fee that almost exhausted their meager earnings.  At a certain point she determined that they wouldn’t do it anymore.  Instead they moved to this community, and prayed to God, that He would protect them from the gangs and that He would provide for them. In fact as a young girl she remembers seeing a Canadian flag, and God impressing on her that some day, He would send help through Canadians.  And then three years ago, she, wearied from her living conditions, she went everyday to a rock and prayed to God for a new home, a safe home, a dry home, a home of security.  Every day for three years, she did this. 

 

Nine months ago, God put together a team of Canadians, who have been shaped not to do, not to fix, not to demean, but to listen and to learn, to enter into the lives of others and look for the evidence of God’s presence. 

 

Let me share with you the words of Tara Odolphy, who was on our team: 

 

“Words also can’t explain the feeling I had yesterday when building our fourth house this week. The mother, Rosa, sat with me, held my hand, and told me that she had prayed three years ago for a house, and that we were the answer to that prayer. She told us her story, shared her faith, and told us she will pray blessings for us, our children, and our children’s children every day for the rest of her life. We cried together, prayed together, and talked about our families. Yes, I felt joy, compassion, love, and so many other emotions. But what I really felt goes beyond that. The best I could describe it is that I felt like I saw Jesus in Rosa that moment. Her deep faith, gratitude, and openness made me feel overwhelmed with love. As Chelsea so beautifully expressed in our morning meeting, sometimes we get caught up in the thought that we are going to show God’s love to the people we are building for, but they can also be the hands and feet of Jesus towards us. Rosa expressed Jesus’s love to me yesterday in a way that transcends the words that usually come so easily to me.  

 

I will forever be grateful for these moments and what they have taught me about myself, my family, and the immeasurable love of Jesus.”

 

When we align ourselves with – not fixing the poor – but learning with the poor – we align ourselves with the those through whom the victory of the Lord will come, we are changed, strengthened, we enter into a place that our hearts long for, a place of shalom. And in the discovery of this wholeness we are emboldened to strive all the more to be found among the armadillos of our world, among the poor, the oppressed, just as Isaiah foretold Jesus would do: 

 

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

Very often, not every time, but very often, when we sit with these families, at the end of dusty and twisting roads, and we engage in conversation, we realize that we are the ones receiving good news, that we are the ones being set free from the confines and restraints of our material world. Often we are confronted by the relational poverty of our own lives, both in our personal relationships and in our lack of depth in relationship to God. It’s surprising, every time, because it comes from those whom we would normally neglect or ignore, like the Christmas armadillo. 

 

However, it is they who often invite us to take a deeper look at Jesus, the reason for His coming, and the challenge to be aligned with the just causes of a needy world that longs for His return. 

Being in El Salvador, has become a little bit of a tradition for my wife and I. On one of our hikes to appreciate the beauty of this country, we ascended to a lookout.  It faced out over an expanse of mountains and valleys. It was a reminder of all the families that we have encountered over the last fifteen years. It was a reminder to be thankful for the principles our teams have been trying to learn and trying to implement into our everyday lives over these years. It was a reminder that God is with us, and with them. 

 

This Christmas, I am thankful for the armadillo, and for the twenty families from this past trip, the twelve from earlier this year, and the hundreds that we have had the privilege of learning from over the years.