Confessions from a Dormitory Chapter 9

I believe everyone has their place in this world and that God gives us different abilities to use for the benefit of others and His glory. During the course “The Tabernacle of Moses” the instructor went over many aspects of the tabernacle that the Israelites built in the desert. We had been approaching the items used for the tabernacle’s construction when my mind had chosen somewhere around that time to daydream. So when the instructor mentioned the Spanish word garfio, all I had understood was “Garfield”. Garfield? As in the fat orange cat? What does Garfield have to do with this? During our 15 minute intermission I made sure to ask around and eventually corrected my notes to garfio or hook.

The instructor had mentioned that in life we are like those wooden boards that stand upright together, but in that body are also brethren that must serve as hooks to link us together to one another. He went on to explain that these hooks represent ‘to place another on fire’, that as they connect one board to another they dig into them, causing pain, representing people who like to be ‘hooks’, making people mad.

One blessed sister whom all students were obliged to see once a month when paying their monthly subscription was immediately dubbed Sister Garfio in my mind that morning. It was quite a narrow climb towards that admission building. Prior to coming to HMI, I had been warned. Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone can ever truly prepare themselves to meet with Sister Garfio.

It was on my arrival that I was called almost immediately into her office. My name had been voiced on the intercom for the first time. It felt exciting at first to hear my name like that. I had thought it was cool.

            After introductions Sister Garfio bluntly said “You’re paperwork isn’t in order”. I frowned, I

had thought I’d been careful with everything. I had received my shots, I had my passport… “I can’t send your paperwork to the embassy to file for your visa without a stamp on this paper” she said gruffly while pointing to a document. “Don’t you Americans know how to read?” her lips seemed set on a pout. I turned different shades of red at her biting remark. I didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? How do you answer that? Am I supposed to answer that?

            Somehow I managed to form some words, “Many of us do read, but it doesn’t mean we necessarily understand everything.” Was that a smart answer? I worried afterwards. Maybe that was a rhetoric question, but she had looked up at me from behind her small round glasses as if she had expected something so…I answered her. I had felt provoked, but only because I was scared and for the first time feeling threatened by such a confrontational person. Geeze, here I was on my first day and I couldn’t even take this old lady’s remark? My mother was forever telling me, “when people are old they don’t reason as much, you should just try to give them their way instead of expecting them to understand.” But with her verbal attack I wasn’t feeling as meek as my mother. I had a cell phone, but not yet purchased my new sim card. I was forced to dial a collect call that morning to my home. I knew both my parents were at work. I prayed for someone to answer the phone.

            “Hello?” I heard William’s voice on the line. I felt a lump in my throat and took a deep breath.

            “Will?” I asked gasped out. I answered quickly before an embarrassing sob could come out. I never cried in front of my family if I could help it. It wasn’t because my family frowned on it, I just felt as if it was a sign of weakness. It was much too personal, and I felt exposed when others saw my tears. “Umm…I’m here.” I paused each time to breathe in deeply. “It looks like” I blinked repeatedly, fighting the tears that threatened my already stinging eyes, “Something is missing...Sister Yoli (Sister Garfio) said…I need a stamp…from the embassy?” I don’t know if I imagined it, but it seemed as if William could see me through the phone. I had always been very private with my feelings at home so it had surprised me to feel as if knew me better than I had let on. Perhaps he was remembering his own experience with Sister Yoli, or maybe he could hear it in my frequent pauses, short gasps, or broken voice.

            “Okay, I’ll tell dad when he gets home. Don’t worry” he repeated over and over, “Don’t worry. You know Sister Yoli? She’s always like that. But don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” I almost let out a sob of relief as he tried to comfort me through the phone. I felt his connection that ran through curled tendrils from the black phone that I held. I almost wished he hadn’t tried to though because it was so difficult to hold back that cry of relief.

I could only bob my head up and down and answer “uhuh, yeah ok.” I was still trying to hold myself together, trying to cage my sobs that begged to escape, but my pride ran through, a stronger force that quieted them down and made them lie dormant for another day. It would have to wait for a more convenient time.

That was some welcome, but as the year went by and I continued to visit Sister Yoli every month, I began to notice something from that old lady with salt and pepper hair. I began to identify myself with the stoical woman behind those pastel business suits. She was a hardcore woman. A tough cookie to crack. And I was a lot like her, very strong willed. I would eventually make more trips to her office out of my own free will and talk about some of my goals, sometimes fiddling with the items on her desk like I had done with my father’s desk as a child.

            “What are you doing?” she asked the first time grouchily.

            “I’m just organizing your paperclips and rubber bands.” I looked up to her innocently. She would go back to ignoring me for a few minutes before picking up the conversation again.

            “Well you know, some people come in here and mess up my papers and then I don’t know where to find them.” From my visits I learned that she was widowed at a young age and forced to be the sole bread winner for her daughters. I would go on to learn that Sister Yoli had survived the terrifying years of guerilla warfare in Nicaragua as well. She had had a very hard life, but despite that she was alive and working at HMI, serving in the best way she knew how. I like to think she developed some affection for me. I know she watched me, otherwise she wouldn’t have taken notice of my awkward walk.

            “Get back here,” she said one day as I was leaving her office. “You walk wrong.” By this time I had grown very accustomed to her frankness and didn’t take any offense. I simply assented, because even my own mother said I walked funny. To this day my shoulders seem to tense whenever I walk in public. “Your steps are too big too, watch this.” After making me watch her petite form walk up and down the hallway, an arm stretched outward holding an imaginary purse, she made me repeat her example. My mother had only given me one lesson with heals before my fifteenth birthday, but aside from that, I had always taken large steps to catch up to Edward’s and my father’s large gait. Old habits die hard and I am sorry to say that Sister Yoli’s walking lessons didn’t quite stick, but I did make an effort when I knew she was around my perimeter.

Some of my first year experiences had been strenuous, scary, and bizarre, but I am grateful for all of them. Had it not been for those early Breakfast hours, isolation, and even Sister Yoli—yes, even her, I might not have known some of my strengths and weaknesses. I might not have learned that through God’s grace, I would find the means to overcome them and found experiences that would help the new students in the following year. 

Confessions from a Dorm Chapter 6

Breakfast duty only covered two hours out of my three hour requirement. In the afternoon after lunch, Papa Celes gave me the job of ‘pilas’. It meant that I swept and mopped, dusted and organized the washroom behind the kitchen. 


It was dark and only a small door to a back hallway allowed some slits of sunlight in. I missed the sunlight and as ever, I was alone. Pilas was a solo job. I had much time to think. 

Sometimes a few internos passed by to climb down to the carpentry room that was in the sunken level beneath the washroom. Behind the washroom to the right was a storage space where extra mattresses were piled up higher than a house and covered with silver and blue tarps. Eventually, my friends and I would use it as the scene for out ‘photo shoots’. 

Here is one of me posing as ‘Rapunzel’ as some of my friends called me. All this I cleaned. I had little direction from Papa Celes when I began. It felt overwhelming at first, I didn't know where to start! I wished he could have given me a list to follow. I rememberd Booker T. Washington when he was made to clean an old room in order to be accepted into a school. He managed to impress with his cleaning skills and I hoped to do the same. Only, Papa Celes wasn't much for feedback. It was difficult to know if he was pleased by your work or not so I tried to do a good job. I swept until I reached the patio that ran along in front of the kitchen and cafeteria. It formed a large L-shape around the corner of the building. 

Sometimes I had someone to talk through the kitchen window like the girls working in the kitchen or in dishwashing. Elizabet who was usually chosen for Dinner duty could quarter chickens expertly. No one could beat her. She was that good. When I had done 2 she had already done 5.

As I swept the patio many times in silence I often had to remind myself that while I wasn’t feeling as if this small contribution was something, sometimes the most insignificant job could serve a greater purpose. If nobody swept the area, there would be more work for those cleaning inside the facility.

You had to learn patience on this job. Sometimes, the patio had been already half-swept when gushing circular wind currents spread the dust and leaves! Even though I knew I had swept, I couldn't leave it like that. Papa Celes might not believe me. I could already picture his impassive face as I explained. It was better to simply begin all over again. All that work for nothing? Patience had never been one of my virtues.

Listening to many of the courses inspired me as I meditated on them while I swept. A part of me couldn’t wait to get back home and share with my friends and family about the Biblical truths that I had never seen before. I wanted to go out and do some greater good for the world, whatever that meant. What am I doing here? I should be out there doing something useful! My patience didn’t always win. But one day as I was complaining about this to God, he allowed me to see something. In my mind I saw a cartoon image of a cartoon figure in running position. He was moving his feet so fast that all you could see were circles where his feet should have been. But as I looked closely, I noticed that he wasn’t going anywhere. The picture seemed to fade out and I was able to see a large hand that held the caricature from the hood of a sweater, pinching it between the hand’s thumb and pointer finger. I suddenly realized what God was telling me.

“That’s you. You’re trying so hard to run. But you are not going to get anywhere because look, I’m holding you back. It’s not your time yet. When it’s time, then I’ll let you go.” It wasn’t an audible voice. I was just able to sense a soft voice in my mind as if it had been my conscience.  But the message had gotten through. Loud & Clear. I needed to be patient and wait until God said, “Go.”

Confessions from a Dorm

Summery:
This is a true story of many of my embarrassing, comical, serious and spiritual experiences in a Bible School in Guatemala, Central America where I went to study for two years after my high school graduation. These are moments of first experiences as well as my reactions and my true thoughts. It was a time of rebirth, growth, as well as many truths that I discovered along the way, not only about the Scripture, but about people in general, diversity, and myself.

Note: I have changed the names of individuals I interact with in my story to protect their identity as well as to respect their privacy. It is suffice to say that while their names have been protected, they are most certainly based on real people who I lived with for those two years.

I will be updating it periodically

 

Confessions from a Dorm

Preview:

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

It felt surreal. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, blinking repeatedly. I am really here! I had thought that if I squeezed my eyes tight enough, I would open them to find myself back at home in my own room. I couldn't believe it. Am I regretting my choice? I placed my doubts on the balance, trying to measure them. In the end, I still didn't have an answer as my mind continued thinking, I am really here.

I believe everyone has their place in this world and that God gives us different abilities to use for the benefit of others and His glory. During the biblical course “The Tabernacle of Moses” the instructor went over many aspects of the tabernacle that the Israelites built in the desert. We had been approaching the items used for the tabernacle’s construction and their significance when my mind had chosen somewhere around that time to daydream. So when the instructor mentioned the Spanish word garfio, all I had understood was “Garfield”. Garfield? As in the fat orange cat? What does Garfield have to do with any of this this? During our 15 minute intermission, I asked around and found out it was really garfio or hook.

The instructor had mentioned that in life we are like those wooden boards that stand upright together, but in that body are also brethren that must serve as hooks to link us together to one another. He went on to explain that these hooks represent ‘to place another on fire’. As they connect one board to another they dig into them, causing pain, representing people who like to be ‘hooks’, making people mad.

One blessed sister whom all students were obliged to see once a month when paying their monthly subscription was immediately dubbed Sister Garfio in my mind that morning. 

It was quite a narrow climb towards that admission building to her little kingdom on top. Prior to coming to Bible school, I had been warned. Nevertheless, I don’t think anyone can ever truly prepare themselves to meet Sister Garfio.

It had been on my arrival that I was called almost immediately into her office. My name had been voiced on the intercom for the first time. I had thought it was cool.

            After introductions Sister Garfio bluntly said “You’re paperwork isn't in order”. I frowned. I had thought I’d been careful with everything. I had received my shots, I had my passport… “I can’t send your paperwork to the embassy to file for your visa without a stamp on this paper” she said gruffly while pointing to a document. “Don’t you Americans know how to read?” her lips seemed set on a firm pout. I turned different shades of red at her biting remark. I didn't know what to say. What was there to say? How do you answer that? Am I supposed to answer that?

            Somehow I managed to form some words, “Many of us do read, but it doesn't mean we necessarily understand everything.” Was that a smart answer? I worried afterwards. Maybe that was a rhetoric question, but she had looked up at me from behind her small round glasses as if she had expected something so…I panicked! And answered her. I had felt provoked, but only because I was scared and for the first time feeling threatened by such a confrontational person. Geeze, here I was on my first day and I couldn't even take this old lady’s remark? My mother was forever telling me, “when people are old they don’t reason as much, you should just try to give them their way instead of expecting them to understand.” But with her verbal attack I wasn't feeling as meek as my mother. 

I didn’t have a Guatemalan sim card for my cell phone yet, so I was forced to dial a collect call that morning to my home. I knew both my parents were at work so had little hope someone would answer the phone and tell me what to do. What if no one answered? Would they leave me out in the street? I naively wondered. I didn't know anyone in Guatemala and I had nowhere else to go! Internally I suppose I realized it wouldn't have happened, it being a Christian Bible school, but at the moment with my experience, I didn't think there was any Christian charity in that woman. I hoped she had a heart of gold somewhere in there.

            “Hello?” I heard William’s voice on the line. I felt a lump in my throat and took a deep breath.

            “Will?” I gasped out. I answered quickly before an embarrassing sob could come out. I never cried in front of my family if I could help it. It wasn't due to any cultural reason, rather personal. I saw it putting my emotional weakness in display. It was much too personal, and I felt exposed when others saw my tears. “Umm…I’m here.” I paused each time to breathe in deeply. “It looks like...” I blinked repeatedly, fighting the tears that threatened my already stinging eyes, “something is missing...Sister Violeta (Sister Garfio) said…I need a stamp…from the embassy?” I don’t know if I imagined it, but it seemed as if William could see me through the phone. I had always been very private with my feelings at home so it had surprised me to feel as if knew me better than I had let on at this moment. Perhaps he was remembering his own experience with Sister Violeta, or maybe he could hear it in my frequent pauses, short gasps, or broken voice.

            “Okay, I’ll tell dad when he gets home. Don’t worry” he repeated over and over, “Don’t worry. You know Sister Violeta? She’s always like that. But don’t worry, everything is going to be okay. We'll figure it out.” I almost let out a sob of relief as he tried to comfort me through the phone. I felt his connection that ran through curled tendrils from the black phone that I held. I almost wished he hadn’t tried to though because it was so difficult to hold back that cry of relief.

I could only bob my head up and down and answer “uhuh, yeah ok” wishing I had some tissue for my runny nose. I was still trying to hold myself together, trying to cage my sobs that begged to escape. But my pride ran through, a stronger force that quieted them down and made them lie dormant for another day. It would have to wait for a more convenient time.

That was some welcome, but as the year went by and I continued to visit Sister Viole every month, I began to notice something from that old lady with salt and pepper hair. I began to identify myself with the stoical woman behind those pastel business suits. She was a hardcore woman. A tough cookie to crack. And I was a lot like her, very strong willed. I would eventually make more trips to her office out of my own free will and talk about some of my goals, sometimes fiddling with the items on her desk like I had done with my father’s desk as a child.

            “What are you doing?” she asked the first time grouchily.

            “I’m just organizing your paperclips and rubber bands.” I looked up at her innocently. She would go back to ignoring me for a few minutes before picking up the conversation again.

            “Well you know, some people come in here and mess up my papers and then I can't find them” she muttered. I learned to nod sympathetically like a therapist with my oh's and mmm's. From my visits I learned that she was widowed at a young age and forced to be the sole bread winner for her daughters. I would go on to learn that Sister Violeta had survived the terrifying years of guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua as well. She had had a very hard life, but despite that she was alive and working at Bible school, serving in the best way she knew how. I like to think she developed some affection for me. I know she watched me, otherwise she wouldn't have taken notice of my awkward walk.

            “Get back here,” she said one day as I was leaving her office. “You walk wrong.” By this time I had grown very accustomed to her frankness and didn't take any offense. I simply assented, because even my own mother said I walked funny. To this day my shoulders seem to tense whenever I walk in public. “Your steps are too big too, watch this.” After making me watch her petite form walk up and down the hallway, an arm stretched outward holding an imaginary purse, she made me repeat her example. My mother had only given me one lesson with heals before my fifteenth birthday, but aside from that, I had always taken large steps to catch up to William’s and my father’s large gait. Old habits die hard and I am sorry to say that Sister Violeta walking lessons didn’t quite stick, but I did make an effort when I knew she was around my perimeter.

Some of my first year experiences had been strenuous, scary, and bizarre, but I am grateful for all of them. Had it not been for those early hours volunteering in the kitchen, initial isolation, and even Sister Violeta—yes, even her, I might not have known some of my strengths and weaknesses. I might not have learned that through God’s grace, I would find the means to overcome them and found experiences that would help the new students in the following year.