Ever since I came back to Paraguay
a lot of people asked me "what are you doing here?" "Why did you
come back?" But today, at work we got to ask these questions to a very
extraordinary couple. I'm still not sure whether what happened today was real
or not... haha…
Picture this,
We were at the
office, getting ready to interview someone for a teaching position, not to
mention that we were a little crabby about not having internet and some other
technical difficulties. Anyhow, all in a sudden a lady walks in, not sure if
she was at the right place, at the right time... we offered her a sit and took
our seats as well in order to begin the interview. I asked her to help me
pronounce her last name, and she gave a really particular nickname, something
in the lines of Mrs. Doubtfire. Then she pulled out her degree certificate and
proceeded by telling us all about her experiences as a teacher and her methods
of teaching. I honestly lost the sense of time as she was talking, and I found
myself and colleagues delighted by her stories. In the middle of her
introduction, her husband comes by and we pulled a chair for him as well. I had
a sheet of paper that we prepared to ask her questions, but when she was done
talking we realized that she answered all the questions without us even asking
her anything.
All in a sudden it
turned out to be a privilege to have this person in front of us… all in a
sudden we were hoping she would choose to be part of our team and be the
teacher we were looking for. The extraordinary thing about this whole story is
that this lady came from the U.S. six years ago to Paraguay, without knowing
Spanish, knowing anybody in South America and leaving absolutely everything she
called home back in the U.S. She is now retired here in Paraguay, and got
married to a French man who also came to Paraguay a few years ago. They both
seem to be madly in love and one of the happiest couple I’ve met until now.
This couple is honestly among the
group of the most inspiring people I’ve met so far. An American lady in her 50s
that followed a little voice telling her to go to South America while she was
sitting at church; and a French man who –we are yet to hear his story – married
this wonderful woman and plays the pipe.
I love it when we come across
people like this, it doesn’t happen that often… but when it happens it’s
awesome! It also helps me to put in perspective what are the thousand reasons
why I’m here in Paraguay… but most important, they taught me that it doesn’t
matter how old we are, we can always take courage and do what we are called to
do and be who we are called to be.