Edited and submitted by permission of the author pastor Adan Mairena by Beverly Dale
Yesterday we met for Bible Study - a grand number of 5. As you know I’m starting a church for the Presbytery, and if you know about starting churches the beginning is the toughest. We read Luke 1 up through Mary’s Magnificat. It was actually a funny time. One woman said “What’s up with this angel just running around telling people they’re going to have babies.”
Another woman said, “Wow, Zachariah the priest didn’t believe and Mary did.”
We laughed and shared other good news (one woman’s cancer is not progressing, a neighborhood girl doing well in college). Then we talked about when we spontaneously sing out in praise when something wonderful happens to us.
One woman said, “I don’t have a job but I have my health, I don’t have money but I have family.”
On the way home I was notified that one of the neighbors of a Bible Study participant -”Rosali” was shot last night. (The names are changed.) Next thing I know I’m in this family’s living room. It’s about 10pm and the mother is giving us the blow by blow. Her 17 year old daughter, Dolores, stepped off the train in Kensington. Someone walked up and shot her boyfriend in the head. His knees buckled and he collapsed. He’s dead. Dolores was shot. A bullet went through one cheek and came out the other. Miraculously it didn’t go through her tongue although it took out lots of teeth.
She ran and dialed 911 then called home. He brother said he could barely understand her. A cop put her in the back of the car and drove her to the hospital. She’s in ICU and has surgery today. Her mother is happy she’s alive but now worries that Dolores will never look the same, won’t be able to talk for a while because her mouth will be wired, she’ll be eating out of a straw and hosed (it will go up her nose and down through the back of her nose.) Dolores’ mother is upset that the police comes around and is trying to force Dolores to talk and find out who shot her boyfriend. “She ran. She didn’t stop and look who shot him…wouldn’t you do the same?” She says she tells the cop. He answers, “I’ll be back.” The father is distant. The other daughter, around 14 is on the couch and their younger son is on the floor playing Madden football on the Sony Play Station.
After saying that I’m here for her and to call me for whatever I ask if we could pray. She looks at me like saying “What? Pray? I don’t think so.” Others walk through the front door. I sense that maybe I overstepped my boundaries by asking if we could pray. I look at her and say, “Right now there’s a lot going on here, I’ll keep you and your family in prayer.” She gives me an appreciative look. As we are departing, she looks at me in a different way like saying, “Yes, let’s pray.” Rosali, says “Can we pray?” We hold hands and pray. Rosali, Dolores’ mother, her brother Jorge, her younger sister and me. We were in the living room and it was decorated and ready for Christmas. On the way out she says, “Christmas ain’t gonna be the same this year.” Maybe that’s what Advent is…waiting for people to stop getting shot like animals.
I’m driving Rosali home and I ask “Is it always this way?” “Yes, my ex-boyfriend’s sister got shot because she was with the wrong person a couple of years ago…they were after him….luckily her baby lived, she was six months pregnant. She died.”
My Advent day yesterday was about laughter and light immediately followed by tragedy and darkness.
En Cristo, Adan Mairena