Me and Julio

Mission trips are emotionally charged experiences. It’s almost impossible to give someone your time, energy, and support without feeling a deep emotional attachment to the place, the community, or the people.

Kathleen Gutierrez was the translator for the trip to Favorito, Cuba, but my four years of Spanish at the Jackson Hole Community School put me into a role of translating casual conversations and basic ideas. This meant that Kathleen had to do all the hard translating for Vacation Bible School or understanding how much we owed the church for our nights sleeping there, while I was able to go on lots of the side adventures!

Ryan Hutton shares his experience on the mission trip to Santa Maria Magdalena in Favorito, Cuba.

On one of those adventures, four people from our church group were going to the ice factory with Julio, a member of the Favorito church, and my mom wanted me to ask if the other groups that came were as much fun as we were. I translated this seemingly simple, light-hearted question, and I got a beautiful but heart-wrenching response. Julio told me that while groups from other churches came to help, they still saw themselves as above the Cuban people, and that more than anything, it made Julio and his family feel like a charity case. He said that the groups didn’t trust him, or were even afraid of him.

Then, with tears in his eyes, Julio told me that while he experienced that feeling with groups from other churches, he didn’t feel that way about us. He said that we trusted, respected, and believed in him on a more personal level. He said that Mike Keegan left his backpack in his house without a second thought about how valuable it was or how easily it would be for someone to take something unnoticed.

Mike saw Julio as his equal, someone deserving of respect not just someone who needed our help. Julio said we were not just related by church or by the contributions we had made to his community, but that we were friends and family who could never be driven apart.

Three other members of the trip were with Julio and me on our way to the ice factory, and while they understood the message that I translated, they did not receive the full weight of what was said. I was listening to Julio say these things in his own language and with words and emotions that I could never translate to English for the others to fully understand.

Nothing can replace the week we spent with our Cuban friends in Favorito, and nothing can replace the relationship we have developed over the last five years.