Iveth

My friendship with Iveth is recent, like newly sprouted leaves. On a tree, leaves sprout from branches young and old. The branches I’m picturing are two churches, mine in eastern Iowa, and Iveth’s in a mountain village of Panama. Our churches share a partnership, and through Christ, it’s like we’re connected to an ancient tree.

Iveth and I became friends after my son visited Panama for a short-term mission trip and I messaged Iveth a thank-you for her hospitality. My husband, Mark, befriended her husband two years ago when they built a concrete patio at the Panama church. The friendship has deepened as they’ve communicated in Google-translated messages about things like the weather and work, and now Iveth and I do the same.

She and I live in an era where we read things online and make judgements about the world from tiny screens. But judgements can be good. My friendship with Iveth causes me to think beyond my own culture and expertise. Plus, she and I have mutual acquaintances because of our church partnership, thus rooting us to our local churches and deepening an affection for the global church.

These past few months we occasionally send messages—we mention the weather or what we’re reading in the Bible. I sent her a picture of tulips I’d bought at Aldi’s while Iowa still had snow on the ground. Iveth knows I love the ocean and sent photos of the beach she visited on a Sunday afternoon.

Iveth is a mother and a newer grandmother. She cultivates plants like lilies and hibiscus and sells them on Saturdays. She knows the patience required. The daily commitment to toil, the faith to wait. It’s the reason I wanted to write about her.

She once climbed atop a hill to video a view of the Panamanian mountainside, and beyond the clouds and fog, I think I glimpsed the sea. The wind blew the branches of trees I didn’t recognize. Along the road, bougainvillea bloomed magenta flowers. Just a glimpse of her landscape reminded me of God’s kindness toward creation. Iveth’s never been to the US, and I never to Panama, and we worship the same Creator God.

The messages we send back and forth pave common ground as our landscapes and seasons appear opposites. Our similarities surface. We’re both committed to the local church, devoted to loving our families, and identified by Christ.

I hadn’t realized how this friendship would cause me to imagine the global church. All of us, God’s children, are enriched when we consider those in God’s family whose lives appear distant or different. Christ makes us connected, as if we are leaves sustained by a tree.

Click here to read more stories, and click here if you'd like to receive future stories delivered monthly to your inbox.

(Photo by Lizgrin on Unsplash)