Cell Phones for Ricardo
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11
Ricardo was our interpreter in Haiti
during our mission in 2014. The whole team formed a special bond with
Ricardo. It is hard to verbalize how important Ricardo was to the
success of our first visit. It could be intimidating to work in a
country where no one on your team understands the local language.
Ricardo would communicate all of our needs as we went about our day.
He was our link and umbilical cord to the Haitian people. We were on
a ship, we knew where we were going, but we didn’t know how to
steer. Ricardo was with us every working minute of the day. He took a
Haitian taxi from his home in Port-au-Prince and stayed at a house
near us in Petit Goave.
Ricardo formed a special friendship
with Nate Starkey. Ricardo was a great big, strong man and so is
Nate. They performed the heavy lifting when it was required on the
job site. They were both studying to become ministers. They talked
together about how they both felt called to the ministry.
At the end of 2015, as we prepared
for our trip, I received a series of e-mails from Ricardo. He had
received his divinity degree, but had lost his first pastoral
position. He was stuck in the unemployment quicksand that defines
Haiti. He had heard that people in the United States have extra cell
phones. He asked if we had any old, unused cell phones. Could he have
an old, unused cell phone for his wife and stepmother who lives in
the countryside?
I picked up a pile of old cell
phones at my work place. Would they work in Haiti? I sent Ricardo a
photo of the old phones. Would these help? He e-mailed back that they
must be GSM. What is GSM? I didn’t have a clue. My brother Bill is
a network engineer for a cell phone company. I called him. I
explained Ricardo’s situation to him. What is a GSM phone? Were
these old phones GSM phones? I was leaving in three days and I was
running out of time.
My brother ordered three new phones
on Amazon and had them express shipped. The speed of Amazon in the
United States made up for the lack of shipping easily in Haiti.
Ricardo’s family would now be able to communicate with his
mother-in-law out in the country. She would be able to talk every day
to Ricardo, to his wife Sofia, and to her beautiful granddaughter,
Anna, in Port-au-Prince.
Praise be to God! How did God know
how to link up my brother, who lives in San Francisco and doesn’t
go to church, with Ricardo in Haiti? How did he link these two people
together? How does God make the everyday wonders that allow us to
survive and thrive? One small miracle at a time.
Tom Cobau
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