Building friendships by planting trees
Pete Hypki turned what could have been an interruption into an opportunity to learn more about the culture and langugage of Nahuatl people.
Pete and Liesl Hypki and their co-workers are sure that, by God’s grace, the experiences that they have shared so far in the village with their Nahuatl friends—hunting mushrooms, cleaning cornfields and chasing cows out of each other’s gardens—will cause their friendships to grow and deepen and will serve as a strong foundation on the day when God has planned for them to share Christ with them.
Since these experiences are important, Pete did not hesitate when his language co-worker, Juan, came to tell him he could not teach him language that day because he was needed to help plant trees.
“Not wanting to miss out on a cultural event, and wanting to get in more language time, I asked if I could come along,” Pete wrote.
So tree-planting became the subject of study and discussion that day.
“Recently,” Pete continues, “there has been funding for a conservation effort in the mountains—paying the local village leaders to attend courses on things like erosion, deforestation, excess livestock and preventing forest fires. This was part of that program. Each adult in the village was given 40 pine saplings to plant and was told they would be paid for doing the work after it was inspected.”
Pete set out with Juan and Juan’s wife, who was carrying their 4-month-old baby on her back. They had each received their 40 saplings and so they headed, along with many others from their village, for the surrounding hills.
He describes a vivid and picturesque sight watching hundreds of Nahuatl people, dressed in their traditional bright colors, scattering through the woods. Since Juan’s wife had her baby on her back, Pete offered to plant her trees for her.
The trees came with very specific and rather confusing instructions, but Juan and Pete got the job done and when they had finished the planting, they all sat together under a big old tree and visited.
Pete sees this tree-planting day in the hills as just one of many valuable times he has spent, investing his life in the lives of the Nahuatl people.
He says that he and Liesl and their co-workers “are honored that the Nahuatl people have included us and that they share their lives with us.”
Then he adds the truth and piece of perspective that makes culture and language study with tribal people so valuable and worthwhile.
“We look forward,” Pete writes, “to the day when we can share with the Nahuatl people, in their own language, the life we have in Christ.”