FEBRUARY 2017 - The minute she walked into Brenda’s yard, Emily Ann Burger’s face broke out into a smile brighter than the Mexican sun. If Christian love has a facial expression, this is it.
The reason for the smile was Ericka, Brenda’s 11-year-old daughter. Emily Ann spoke a few words in Spanish, and a grin spread across Ericka’s face. The shy Mayan girl and the American college student were instant friends. From that moment forward Emily Ann was our connection to the children of Ichmul, San Francisco and Chan Cal0tmul. A seed was planted.
Whether drawing with chalk, playing with an oversized beach ball, painting fingernails or taking pictures on her iPhone, the children gravitated to Emily Ann, and she to them. I have never seen anything quite like it. At the end of that first full day in Mexico, when Eli, our leader, asked volunteers about their favorite part of the day, Emily Ann said it was the children. This is her calling.
No matter where we went over the course of our seven-day mission trip, if we needed to find Emily Ann, we needed only to look for the children.
This affinity started with a seed planted on one of her first trips to Mexico. That first year, or perhaps a year later, Emily Ann made a connection with a boy named Filipe. She has a picture on her iPhone of her and a 5, maybe 6-year-old Filipe. He is tiny, and Emily Ann is young, but it is clear they have a connection. Emily Ann and Ericka. We hadn’t been in Mexico more than a couple of days when Emily Ann glimpsed a boy. He looked to be 10 or 11. She was clearly excited, and scrambled to get her mom’s attention. “It’s Filipe!” The boy flashed a broad smile. Of course he remembers the tall blonde with blue eyes, a rare sight in these parts. From that point forward, the other way to find Emily Ann was to look for Filipe. She added a new photo with Filipe to her phone. It may be her favorite souvenir from this trip. One night, after a long, hot day of painting and cleaning and dirt hauling, Emily Ann explained the life of a missionary. She later shared those words with our church, after we returned home. Emily Ann and Filipe in 2012 “Each year we come as a team of missionaries to share the gospel to the people of Yucatán… we do so by serving throughout their community and building relationships… through building relationships we earn the right to love on them and through loving on them we earn the opportunity to share the gospel.” That’s it. That is the work of the work of missionaries, whether spending a week in Mexico or a lifetime in China. Emily Ann has been to Mexico five times, and, Lord willing, she’s going back. She probably doesn’t know I overheard a conversation she had while we were there (although it’s not too hard to overhear conversations when the only phone connections are against a single wall or along a guidewire.) Emily Ann is already looking forward to a return to Mexico, perhaps as an intern with the Mission House team. No one would be surprised at this news. Six years ago, our church took a leap of faith to see how we could impact the Mayan people living in the rain forests of the interior Yucatán peninsula, planting the seed of faith there. Emily Ann was one of those early missionaries to make the trip. There, she invested her time in a little boy named Filipe.
“Each year I go back I pick up just where I left off, and all of the children welcome me back with big smiles and open arms as if I never left… God continues to grow those relationships deeper and deeper and gives me the opportunity to build new relationships every year!” Today there are churches in three pueblos. There are sports courts where people gather to play basketball, soccer and four square. There are gatherings where people sing praises and hear about the love of Christ. Six years later, Emily Ann and Filipe pick right up where they left off, each a little older and a little wiser, from a seed to a sprout to a stalk. Six years later, Emily Ann befriended a girl named Ericka and shared the love of Christ with Ericka’s mother, Brenda. Emily Ann is a seed planter.
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