One of the international students who spent some time with us at the San Juan campus was a Norwegian medical student named Cecilie. She was taking some time off from her studies to learn Spanish, volunteer and backpack with some friends. But for about a month, it was just she and we in San Juan, so we adopted her into our group.
Our friendship with her was greatly helped by the fact that she spoke fluent English.
Cecilie came with us on our big weekend road-trip to Flores, the Tikal ruins and Livingston. The hours-long van rides gave us plenty of time to talk and get to know her. To my delight she loved to discuss big topics. We covered everything from the death penalty, to the welfare state to the nature of humanity.
Though she and I operated from very different assumptions and usually had contrary opinions, we loved talking to each other. She was able to talk light-heartedly about deep issues. And even though we never drew definitive conclusions on anything, we respected each other and learned from each other.
She was particularly interested in talking about our Christianity. She took full advantage of being surrounded by young missionaries and tapped our brains for explanations of our faith. Almost all of us shared our personal testimonies with her at some point.
The one thing we stressed was that our “religion” was not about rules, but about a relationship with God. Though she continued to subscribe to a characteristically European Humanism, she told us that we had changed her view of what it means to be a Christian.
When the time came for Cecilie to move on with her plans, she wanted to have a going away dinner to say goodbye. She told us that we had surprised her by being a family for her while she was alone in Guatemala and that she would miss us.
Getting to know Cecilie meant a lot to me, and I hope to see her again in the future. I am going to keep praying for mi amiga noruega.
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