Beatriz* came to our church with a little boy trailing behind her, a child from a brief relationship she’d had soon after coming to the U.S. Pregnant with another little boy, she walked hesitantly into Christian suburbia. Though she’d been in the U.S. for five or six years, this was a completely different world than the city she had called home.
Suburbia has different rules and a language all its own, on top of the usual barriers immigrants encounter.
She spoke English better than she believed but worse than employers wanted. I spoke a small smattering of Spanish — enough to pretend I knew what I was doing when I had no idea. Despite the barriers of language, lifestyle, and age, I liked her cautious smile and her humor-infused eyes, and I thought maybe we could find common ground.
I am not good at making friends. I don’t approach people. I don’t know how to start a conversation. I don’t engage first. When that conversation has to happen partly in charades, I’m ready to bow out and let someone more intrepid than I give it a try.
But those eyes told me she could be a friend. They also told me she needed one.
She and her soon-to-be husband began attending, and her son and my daughters bonded quickly. Aren’t children great facilitators of friendship when adults feel awkward?
Soon, Beatriz and I were meeting at the park, communicating early friendship across language and culture, watching our kids not care about those things. I helped her fill out employment applications. She showed me how to cook habaneros (a feat I had tried once for my spice-loving husband which had resulted in an apartment evacuation). I brought her to doctor’s appointments and tried to translate medical English to normal-people English. We laughed over our kids’ antics and cried over our kids’ heartaches.
Something happened while I helped Beatriz learn to navigate American suburbia. She showed me that it takes so much more than knowing a language or having a college degree to learn to thrive in a world not designed for a foreign citizen.
She showed me it takes grit and guts — both of which she had in abundance behind those mischievous eyes and tentative smile. She needed me to be her friend and interpret a hostile, confusing world at times. But she did not need me to make her way for her. She had known what it was to be a stranger in a strange place for years before she met me.
Together, we journeyed through what can be, after all, a hostile, foreign land for all who swear allegiance to the One who told us that in this world we would have trouble.
I am not a citizen of this world. I am a foreigner, born and bred by God for another land, and I don’t speak the language of this one as well as I would like. Yet I am part of this country that lives in its not-yet tension and has a language that needs interpreting and redeeming. It’s going to take grit on my part to run against a wind that blows away from grace, welcome, kindness, and purity.
It’s going to take guts to reach across lines of difference to interpret love.
Beatriz has taught me those things.
A few years into our unlikely friendship, Beatriz gave me the greatest honor I believe I’ve ever received. She invited me to her citizenship ceremony, the only person other than her husband who would stand by her side that day as she promised to “support and defend the Constitution” and “bear true allegiance to the same.” She held the naturalization certificate as if it was a Golden Ticket, ready to take her on journeys to places she had never imagined, or if she had, she had believed them open only to those born in more fortunate circumstances.
I was one of those so fortunately born. Before Beatriz, the lives of those who were not so fortunate were invisible to me, part of the unseen fabric woven into the underside of my pleasant suburb, not the side people showed.
Now, in part because of Beatriz, I teach ESL to refugees. I pick them up at the airport and savor the looks in their eyes — looks similar to the one I saw in her eyes when she held that piece of paper making her a citizen. Knowing Beatriz helped me to recognize their astounding resourcefulness, their ability to adapt and create independence that I am blessed to guide but am hardly the author of because I watched her grit and determination.
We all live in a world that needs interpreting every now and then. When we find a friend who helps us do that, it doesn’t matter what language she speaks. We’re all helping one another navigate a world that is strange yet home.
*My friend’s name has been changed for her privacy. Beatriz means “voyager.”
Leave a Comment
Michele Morin says
All the yeses to this: “It’s going to take grit on my part to run against a wind that blows away from grace, welcome, kindness, and purity.”
And I was already overwhelmed with your story, but when you shared that you let the Wind blow you toward being an ESL teacher for refugees, I had to stop and ask God to show me how I can help interpret and navigate the world for those who need direction.
Blessings to you, Jill.
Jill Richardson says
Thank you, Michele. That is the best thing you could have told me. <3
Bev @ Walking Well With God says
Jill,
What a beautiful story/testimony you weave when we dare to step outside our comfort zone. I know that God calls us to do that a lot more than we realize – we have just become adept at tuning Him out. When God called me to enmesh my life with strangers from the Middle East*, I wish I could say I stood up and said, “He’re I am, Lord. Use me.” No, I looked more like Jonah running in the opposite direction. I am so thankful that God is persistent and I can’t imagine my life apart from the deep brown, soulful eyes of the orphans in the Middle East* – a country they were born into, but one that fills them with terror at every turn. When I look at them I see a young Jesus, because He most likely looked more like them than He looks like me. What if we ALL took a giant step outside our comfort zones and allowed our lives to be enriched by people (God’s children) who, on the outside may look different than we do, but on the inside have hearts that need Him? Wonderful post and love how that one step has called you into a ministry! Thank you for sharing!
Blessings,
Bev xx
*Specific country withheld for reasons of safety
Jill Richardson says
Bev, that is beautiful. I love seeing your heart grow toward them. Isn’t it the truth that when we just meet the “different’ people things completely change?
Marina says
Beautiful. Love this! What an inspiration and a good reminder! Thank you for sharing.
Jill Richardson says
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Marina!
Brenda says
Awe, thank you for sharing that, Jill. I’ve been asking God to open my eyes to those around me who need His love. To be able to be that tangible love for others — really is its own reward. It’s reciprocal in nature…the gift is in the giving. Thanks for sharing this sweet story of unlikely friendship, Jill–it’s inspiring. 🙂
Jill Richardson says
So true. I learn so much as I teach someone else. Never fails.
Sallie Gunter says
Wow, so beautifully written!!! Thank you for the challenge to step outside my comfort zone. The rewards are immense for all. I will definitely save this one to reread again and again.
Jill Richardson says
Thank you, Sallie! That blessed my day.
Betty Draper says
Great post. It’s the reverse of what I have lived. God sent us over seas, first to Bolivia then a few years later to Papua New Guinea. I realized He had prepared us being staff at a church that was super evangelistic. We took 800 bus kids one summer to the zoo…unchurched children, that was by far harder than anything we experienced over seas. We now reside in the states due to our health as Member Care reps for our mission. Your post lifted my aching heart for the hardest thing we face returning to the states is the burden of ease that has taken over the church. also the burden of “stuff”. It’s a me world with most in the church but it does not take the responsibility off me to give of myself in some area. Just cause it’s a 1st world culture problem I do not have to have that problem myself. God has allowed me to teach a bible study, lead and disciple a young women in great need of practical help along with her spiritual life. Again, great post.
Jill Richardson says
Yes–I continually struggle with making sure I don’t let that culture take me over. It’s non stop, isn’t it? Love what you’re doing.
Beth Williams says
Jill,
Awesome testimony! It takes grit, determination and conviction to run against the wind of this world. Speaking love to those less fortunate than I. Each month our church makes desserts while another church makes main course for “Feed the Multitude”. This organization feeds the less fortunate in our area. I go each time & help fill trays with food. It is a blessing to do that as it makes me realize what I have & quit complaining about stuff. Also I spent the last 4 years assisting in the care of my aging dad. It wasn’t always easy. He moved into an assisted living in 2014, but still the late night calls & leaving work almost weekly to attend some doctor visit was a part of it. God helped me to navigate the realm of dementia-in all forms. Now I feel “qualified” to help others in the same situation. I have loads of information about hospice, home health & assisted living facilities. While he was in the last assisted living facility I would go visit 4 times a week-I had quit my job. Each time I would try to talk with the other residents and try to cheer them up. I know it’s hard living with mental/physical problems. Also when family can’t visit that much life gets lonely.
Blessings 🙂
Jill Richardson says
That is a beautiful ministry, Beth. It’s a population that is so overlooked, and the families are so burdened. Thank you for your work!
Amelia Rhodes says
Jill, this is so beautiful and inspiring. Thank you for sharing and helping us remember we are all foreigners and strangers in this world and we all could use a friend.
Jill Richardson says
Thanks you, Amelia. I love knowing someone might even smile at a person who is different than they are after reading something I said. It’s all grace.