Hast mostla.

We emerge from the wooded path into a clearing. There sits a little wooden house. The door stands open and two children stop their play, staring at the strangers that had just happened upon their home. Greetings where exchanged all around, and then a few words in a language unknown to me.
We walk up to the next home and enter the kitchen. Three very dear ladies are there, grandmother, mother, and daughter. Our greetings with them are filled with more warmth. Strong hugs and kisses on each cheek. Others are there as well, and formal greetings are exchanged once again. Then a few more words are said, again, just sounds that register nothing in my mind. They all stood up suddenly, walking down the hill to their bedroom. We all take seats, as their neighbors, the people we had just talked to moments before, begin to fill in. We begin to sing. Every now in then, David translates what is happening into Spanish, and I in turn translate to my sister Ashlyn. We sing from our hearts with praise to the Lord. We sing "Open the eyes of my heart Lord" and David asks Ashlyn and I to sing it in English. David shares from the Bible, and afterward we have a time of prayer.
We go back up to the kitchen to share a meal togther. We laugh and carry on, my friend Ana fills me in on what is happening. We had discovered this home only two weeks before, when those ladies trusted Christ. We are told that it is time to go. We go around the room, hugging the ladies and barely touching the fingertips of the men.
Ashlyn and I make it outside first. We walk quickely for a little ways, then stop, looking at each other. Tears fill our eyes.

We had shared our lives with those people. Yes, only over a few short weeks, and always with a translator or two, but we loved them and we knew that they loved us.
But we also knew that we would never see them again in this world. We were leaving. Leaving to go back to the country that we came from, with no expections of ever returning to that small clusters of homes, hours from any real town, in the middle of the mountains of Mexico.
We had shared our lives with them, but now we share, the LIFE, life eternal, and not through a translator, but through our mediator, Jesus Christ. Yes, life that transends all types of lifes, cultures, languages, and experiences. We are one in HIM.
So even though we knew what was coming, we never said goodbye but we did say "hasta mostla."

Or in other words....
See you later.