Mango Lessons

Question: When is a mango not just a mango?

Grenada is coming out of mango season. For about a month, the mango trees around Grenada were heavy laden with fruit. I often met sticky-faced children on the road, already carrying their next two or three mangoes home. Friends, neighbors, coworkers, and “my kids” made sure I was well stocked. At one point, I had 16 mangoes in my kitchen. I was eating several mangoes a day just to keep up. (It’s a tough life, being a missionary. 😉 )

Being from Ohio, I am not any kind of mango expert. Tropical fruit is just not our specialty in the Buckeye state. Before coming to Grenada, I could not have named any of the many varieties of mangoes. If you had asked me this time last year, I would have said that a mango is just a mango.

Luckily, my Grenadian friends have been more than happy to school me on mangoes. I spent the better part of an afternoon chatting with my boys about the many varieties of mangoes. What I learned is that there are dozens of different mango types. Each has a distinct color, scent, texture, taste. To the untrained eye (and mouth!) the mangoes were all the same. But for those who take the time to consider them carefully, they will find that each mango has a unique character.

So when is a mango not just a mango? When it is a mango lung, mango butterfly, mango needle, mango julie, mango pig, mango celon, mango rum, mango rose, mango calivigny… the list goes on and on!

Just a few of the many kinds of mangoes

This is a lesson I needed to take to heart during the past week when Love and I ran VBS at the Gouyave Methodist Church. Going into the week, I recalled the stories from the church ladies about how bad the children of Gouyave could be. Gouyave, where I work and go to church, is a town with a reputation. It is known for vagrants, bad parenting, rude behavior, and people on the streets all night long. They have a saying in this area that “nothing good comes out of Gouyave.” (Sound familiar?)

I have worked in Gouyave for almost a year now, so I know that Gouyave is not all bad. And yet I still cried out because of the fears I had for VBS. I knew there would be chaos, discipline problems, rudeness, and children showing up only because they knew they would get a snack. I had in my mind a “single story” about Gouyave and the children we would serve during VBS, and the story was not a good one. I was braced for the worst.

And I’m not going to lie: the week was very trying for me. We anticipated about 30 children per day and instead averaged 60 in our one-room church. My patience was stretched thin until I finally snapped, on more than one occasion, because of the children’s behavior. It was noisy, chaotic, and utterly exhausting. If not for our team of amazing volunteers, there is no way that Love and I would have been able to make it through the week.

One of the most frustrating parts of the week for me was not being able to get to know the children personally. I spent most of my time wrangling children or running activities, leaving little opportunity to befriend them one-on-one. But then again, I didn’t really need to get to know them one-on-one, because all Gouyave children are just the same, right?

Wrong.

Exhausted as I was, I was able to catch glimpses of goodness in even our most troublesome children. I was able to watch the quiet children, the polite ones, the sweet small ones whose gentle touch melted my frustration. I watched children share. I watched a few listen attentively to the stories amidst the chaos surrounding them. I saw enthusiasm for coming to VBS. By God’s grace, I was reminded to look beyond the mass of unruly children to see them as individuals- small people with big potential, many growing up in difficult circumstances not of their making. Despite coming from “the bad part of town,” these children have characters as sweet and varied as the mangoes I’ve so enjoyed, if I only take the time to see them each for who they really are.

So when is a Gouyave child not just a Gouyave child?

When they are a Kristoff, Aquilla, Africca, Mya, or Delaunte. When they are a Daneza, Andrew, Kaline, Jordyn, Rozarea…

When they are recognized as a child of God.