Ptwang! Ptwong!

We had just finished our nightly evangelistic meeting and everyone was brushing their teeth and performing other pre-bed rituals. Everyone was tired after a long day, at least almost all of us were. However, since today was the birthday of a young man baptized last weekend a small group of us decided to go sing to him. Hence the ptwanging and the ptwonging – we were tuning the guitar to heighten the excitement. After the ptwanging morphed into a more cheerful noise, out little inconspicuous group of preuvians and gringos set off into the night. It was quite dark, but a few stars were peaking between the mango leaves above. We crept along the dark, dusty street trying not to cause a commotion in the sleeping village. A few poeple stumbled on some roots growing haphazardly in the middle of the street, but we managed to reach Bryon´s house without an deaths. As we scurried around to the door at the back of the house, someone yet again tripped, thus giving away our secrecy.

¨Who is it?¨ came a voice from inside the house.

We quietly huddled in the darkness hoping to fool Bryon into thinking the noise was only a stray dog. After a few agonizing moments we continued on our quest. With his mom in the lead we burst through the door with a rather spastic ¨¡Cumplianos Feliz!¨

Bryon´s startled look quickly turned into a beaming smile. After the birthday song we continued with many other traditional peruvian birthday songs. As the songs died down we joked about how it was now time to make a wish and blow out the birthday candles, even though there were none. But then, his mom grabbed their one candle that was iluminating the house and held it infront of Bryon´s face. After a brief moment, Bryon blew out the candle, thus leaving us in total darkness. But that didn´t faze us one bit. We broke out in a rather Mexican sounding song while his mother searched for some matches to light the candle once more. After the song died down we said our goodbyes then left the family in peace. Bryon thanked us profusely for such a nice suprise.

As we were walking back I thought of how we completely made Bryon´s day with our simple act of thoughtfulness. We could have all just gone to bed after our evening meeting or just chilled in our house. Instead we made the effort to brighten another´s day. So many times we as selfish humans are so caught up in our own lives that we don´t realice is that a simple act of kindness could really brighten somebody´s day. So put self aside and go suprise someone, make their day.