Val Paraiso

Val Paraiso was unlike any other city I had ever visited. The people were inherently the same - for at the core of it, we are all very, very similar - but the appearance of the city was staggering.

Because of its location, I like to call Val Paraiso the San Francisco of South America. It had a habit of quickly becoming lost in a wall of fog for minutes, sometimes hours, at a time. Then the fog would disappear in seconds, and clear blue skies and warm salt air would rush in and fill my chilled lungs. Tightly-packed houses of pastel and fluorescent hues stretched from the beach to the tops of the rolling hills, separated by bumpy cobblestone streets.

And yet the wires overhead made it so completely unlike the cleaner, almost pristine city streets near the Golden Gate - those frayed nets of electric wires that sprawled like thick cobwebs from house to house, strung vicariously as the need arose. They hovered buzzing overhead, so low in points that I saw the tallest men needing to duck beneath them as they walked up and down the sloping sidewalk.

Our bus edged laboriously up hills and around sharp corners, and my head began to pound as the sensation of being trapped in a labyrinth became even more pronounced. Still, careening around corners in an old grey minibus was far safer than trudging on foot - I recalled a story Denis had told over dinner the night before. He was mugged once in Val Paraiso because his camera had caught the eye of a passing thief. The quaint and colorful storefronts masked a city far more desperate and impoverished than the working-class neighborhoods of Santiago.

The bed and breakfast Elizabeth booked was in the heart of that dressed-up tourist section. It was bright yellow, Victorian-style house with white shutters. The sunlight blazed overhead and reflected off the clean paint. I looked out across the patio, to the sea, and felt the fresh, warm breeze blow across my face. For nearly a week, my world had been covered by a cloud of smog.

We spent some time exploring the house before venturing out to the streets. After a bit of wandering, we made our way to a restaurant downtown. Marco led us into a building that looked like an old warehouse. Most of the windows in the cement walls were shattered, but when we walked inside the effect wasn't creepy or frightening. Sunlight drifted through the windows onto the dusty floor, and the shadowed spaces held cool breezes that smelled of the ocean. The restaurant was upstairs.

Lunch was cheese empanadas and a water-based seafood soup. I wasn't feeling adventurous that day; I nibbled at an empanada while I watched Mike and Marco devour the tiny sea creatures whole, complete with slurping sound effects. Crystal constructed bits of crustacean into a being she called "No-face," and tried to make it talk.

I think it was their blank, staring eyes. It had to be. Because shortly afterward I got sick enough to never want to eat meat again.... again.

The Miracle at the Rest Stop

The mist still hung in the air in the foothills of the coastal mountains when we stopped at a tourist-laden restaurant and bakery in a valley near the wine country. The group spent twenty minutes buying water bottles and looking around; Marco and Orlando bought pastries in the bakery and insisted I helped them eat half the plate, a habit from my Chilean hosts that I was quickly learning to expect.


Make of it what you will, but I did not come across a single unfriendly man during my stay in Chile. Orlando, the driver, had a very fatherly manner, and Marco constantly hovered around in a state of comic flirtation. (Bless his heart.) Of everyone I met, with perhaps the exception of Perla, our translator, Marco and Orlando were the most patient with my attempts to hold an extended conversation in Spanish. Perhaps it was my reciprocity; when they took the liberty to practice their English, I tried to help the best I could as they were helping me.




It slowly began to occur to me that the language barrier was not as much of an obstacle for me as I or the team leaders had expected it to be. Really, it made no sense for me to comprehend as much as I did; I had taken only introductory Spanish courses in high school, and was resurfacing from a two-year hiatus from any practice or exposure to the language. I began college and dove headfirst into the English program. On top of it all, the Chilean dialect and accent is so markedly differenct from the European version I had learned that it was shock for a beginner like me to have understood anything at all. The only explanation I can think of for it is that I was having an Acts gift of tongues experience, like God was giving me some weird knack for Chilean Spanish.



Yes, I'm serious about that. I think people are perfectly capable of speaking in tongues, if God wants them to. We often have such a narrow window when it comes to our perceptions and expectations of His power. I used to balk at the phrases like tongues or being slain in the spirit largely because of my perception of it - I heard those words and my mind would immediately conjure an image of people uttering strings of gibberish and jerking convulsively on the floor.

I don't doubt that it happens, but somehow, I don't think it always works that way - unless Jesus was only kidding when he told us to lead lives of humility. When one suddenly and inexplicably speaks a foreign language with no one around to interpret, what is accomplished besides shocking others and drawing attention to oneself? Nothing.

That was what made Jesus' miracles so miraculous - each and every one of them was selfless and filled with purpose and love, whether it was healing the sick, feeding those who hunger and thirst, freeing the enslaved, or forgiving the condemned. He saw the needs of those around Him and He met them with patience, kindness, humility, righteousness, and grace. Proclaiming the glory of God through signs and wonders alone does not proclaim the good news of the forgiveness of Christ.

Paul saw this and preached it to the early church. He told the church in Corinth that "I may speak in different languages of people or even angels. But if I do not have love, I am only a noisy bell or a crashing cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy. I may understand all the secret things of God and have all knowledge, and I may have faith so great I can move mountains. But even with all these things, if I do not have love, then I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and I may even give my body as an offering to be burned. But I gain nothing if I do not have love."*


*1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (New Century Version)