Puerto Rico – March 19, 2018
He sat on the edge of his families porch with a look most closely described as vacant intrigue. His curiosity peaked after an hour watching six missionary workers dig up the thickly rooted stumps in the backyard of his neighbor’s house; affected by the damage from hurricane Maria. His name is Jose. He is what appears to be eleven or twelve and wears a basketball jersey for no team, in particular, the front simply reads Escuela, which upon a much later Google search directly translates to School. Jose was not in school on this particular Monday, no, the teacher’s had gone on strike, demanding more pay, and frankly, they deserve it but that’s not the point. Jose wandered over to the neighbor’s yard sometime after lunch and began meandering his way to help. Soon he was leading the missionaries pulling one stump after another, wiggling and jiggling, lifting them (with some help of course) out of the ground, into the wheelbarrow, and off to the garbage pile a distance away. He did all of this mind you wearing NO SHOES. After the day’s work was completed this mysterious Puerto Rican legend got onto his bicycle and drove off into the sunset, he popped a wheelie, said something in Spanish, and off he went. #stm #adventures#shorttermmissions #cesaringeorgia
Nate Hartley
