Hoy Sixto Fue a Casa al Paraiso

Con los años, Sixto me ha enseñado lecciones que no pueden comunicarse con palabras. Por favor, perdona mi débil intento de tratar de comunicar esto. Nuestras visitas no consistía más que un juego de Uno que me dejaba ganar, ya que haría sonreír tan grande, y nos gustaría beber sodas y comer churos. Eso resume cada visita. En esas visitas, me enteré de que todos nos queremos ser amados. Sólo queremos que alguien venga y creer en nosotros. Sólo queremos que alguien nos diga que va a estar bien. Sólo queremos a alguien que toma la mano. Sólo queremos que alguien piense que somos especiales. Sólo queremos que alguien nos diga que tenemos un hermoso futuro que nos espera. Sólo queremos a alguien que llora con nosotros y se ríen con nosotros. Sólo queremos a alguien.

Estoy agradecido que llegué a ser que alguien de Sixto. Me decía a menudo que él me quería enterrar a él cuando murió. Nos gustaría soñar juntos del día, y recordemos que Dios es soberano. Pues bien, Dios es soberano, y nuestro sueño ha llegado.

Sixto, le extrañaremos, pero es tan vale la pena saber que está en el paraíso. Gracias, Sixto, por haberme enseñado las verdades profundas que las palabras son incapaces de comunicarse. Usted eres amado.

Sixto's Day Finally Came!

At 1:24pm  today I received a call. 

Heaven came down and touched my heart the moment I heard Nieve say with a lamenting voice, “He just died.” 

Sixto was one of the most simple people I know.  His life has had a profound impact on mine not because of his simplicity, but because of his difficulty.  He has longed for this day for about 5 years now.  He has suffered horrendously with cancer that has left his face marred with inexplicable open abscesses.   

Sixto was in his 70’s, and has always had a difficult life.  He grew up very poor, working in the fields and mountains, never acquiring language (he’s deaf), never marrying our having children, and never being included.   He developed a skin cancer on his face, and if it had been treated in time, could have simply been removed.  Because of his poverty and lack of resources, the cancer wasn’t treated and literally ate away his face until his body couldn’t sustain it any longer. 

Over the years, Sixto has taught me lessons I cannot communicate with words.  Please forgive my feeble attempt at trying to communicate this.  Our visits never consisted of more than a game of Uno where I’d let him win because it’d make him smile so BIG, and we’d drink soda and eat chips.  That about sums up each and every visit.  In those visits, I learned that we all just want to be loved.  We just want someone to come along and believe in us.  We just want someone to tell us it’s going to be okay.  We just want someone to hold our hand, and touch us.  We just want someone to think we are special.  We just want someone to tell us we have a beautiful future awaiting us.  We just want someone to cry with us and laugh with us.  We just want someone. 

I am grateful I got to be that someone for Sixto.  He would tell me often that he wanted me to burry him when he died.  We would dream together of the day, and remind ourselves that God is sovereign.   Well, God is sovereign, and our dream has arrived.  Nieve, his sister who took care of him, just called to let me know I need to come burry him. 

I will be leaving on the first flight tomorrow morning, and will hopefully have him buried by midday.  I will share meaningful words to the onlookers of how greatly Sixto’s life impacted mine.  I will share of the promise given to Sixto in The Good Book, and I will pray that Sixto’s essence will remain on me always. 

I want to continue being that someone to someone.  May my eyes always be open to who those someones may be. 

Sixto, you will be missed, but it’s ohhhhhh so worth it to know you are in paradise. Thank you, Sixto, for teaching me profound truths which words are unable to communicate.  You are loved. 

Photo: I took this photo 10 months ago. I have cropped out the other half as it is very disheartening. I have
kept the uncropped photo with me as a visual reminder to pray for this day.  The sign of course read:
I want heaven.  

The Future

I recall a few years ago when a friend and I were having a discussion about the simple word “change,” and how it affects our lives.  I was at quite an immature state in life, and stubbornly believed that “change” was a bad thing.  In my nature, I just enjoyed things the way they were; “change” was risky, it was difficult, it took work, and the outcome was never certain.  Why take a gamble when you had a sure thing in your pocket?  My wise friend replied with this analogy which has stuck with me since.  He said, “Imagine a small pond that has been cut off from any supply of fresh water.  The pond just sits there over time, the water never moving, refreshing itself.  The pond will gradually become dirtier and dirtier as it fills with bacteria left from the environment surrounding it.  Eventually the water will become undrinkable and useless.  If a person became lost in the woods and dying of thirst stumbled upon this pond, drinking it would only cause him bodily harm because of the bacteria the water carried.”  “Now,” he said, “imagine a new pond, only this time with a river flowing through it.  The water is continuously flowing through the pond, displacing older water with newer water.  Thus when you look on it, the water appears fresh and clean.  Fish and other wildlife could either live in it or use it to sustain life.  If a person was dying of thirst this river would save his life.”  All I could do upon hearing those words was to simply bow my head in defeat and admit to myself the truth; “change” is not only good, it is essential to life.  One could say a rather big “change” in my life was 14 months ago when my wife Jess and I moved to La Ceiba.  It’s been astonishing to just witness the “changes” not only in Signs of Love but in the lives of the people we see consistently.

I’m a huge believer in growing the youth in the church.  I think it is absolutely essential in growing the church because of that same principal of change.   A passionate youth brings new life into a church, new ideas, enthusiasm, and so much more.  There is a reason that Jesus told us that we need to have faith like a child, because of what a child brings to the table.  In my opinion, one of the main reasons is a child or young person is eager to learn.  Not only are they eager to learn, they are also eager to share what they have learned.  You can just hear the voices of countless children coming home from school just saying, “Mommy guess what I learned today?”

Over the past few months it has been great to see that “youth movement” occur in our Deaf Church.  We now regularly have 6-8 kids who are a part of our Deaf class coming to The Deaf Church on a regular basis.  It’s also exciting that some of these kids are more advanced in their language than a high majority of our existing church base.  That opens up the door to the things they have the ability to learn about the Bible.  I’m at the point when I can simply look on them and see the potential, see the future of The Deaf Church, the future of Signs of Love.  They have been that refreshing water in the church.

I pray constantly that God will raise up leaders from these youth to take the reigns and launch this ministry into great new heights.  I can see it when they are grasping biblical concepts quickly, memorizing scripture, and setting a fresh example that even most of the adults could learn from.  I saw it when we were able to take every older kid from our Deaf class out to our village programs in February.  How most of them loved having the chance to interact with other Deaf kids without the ability to take advantage of daily schooling.  How they would create their own activities without prompting and implement those activities with ease.  How they would desire to teach their language to those who struggled to grasp it.  Every day after those village programs I was so excited that I felt like I could punch through a brick wall.  I truly felt like God was giving us a glimpse of what Signs of Love was going to be in the future.

I don’t expect this change to happen overnight, and it is going to take a lot of work and training, but I can see that fresh water coming to replenish and sustain a key part of Signs of Love… and boy does it look good.                                     - Daniel Fox