God Bless You

View from the main street of San Mateo Cajonos in the Sierra Juarez mountains

Just when I think that maybe I have attained some fluency in Spanish, I get another language thrown in. This past weekend, I traveled to the mountain town of San Mateo Cajonos. This is a Zapotec town and I was greeted with "Diosa gon la ye le". This means "God bless you" in the Zapotec dialect of this town and is quite different than the Spanish "Dios les bendiga". The ladies then proceeded to make sure that I could repeat this phrase along with several others that mean "Thanks to God" and "I'm leaving now". It was quite a scene as I tried to get my lips and tongue around these strange sounding words. I was able to master it enough to greet the congregation using this phrase when I was introduced and people even understood what I was saying. This was just one of the many experiences that God blessed me with this past weekend. Oaxaca is full of little mountain towns like San Mateo where you feel transported back to another time. People are so friendly and welcoming and of course we worship the same Lord even though our languages in praising Him may be different.

"I'm going to come and then gather everyone—all nations, all languages." Isaiah 66:18 The Message