Te amo abuelo
by Alex Ruybalid, Partner Engagement Director
It was a cold, Colorado morning, but the Styrofoam coffee cup, heavy with cream, was enough to warm my eight-year-old hands as I sat in the audience at church. This church was different from others though, as my family members not only made up most of the audience, but the service was made up of my grandpa leading the worship and giving the sermon. “Noche de Paz” and other hymns are probably still echoing off the concrete floors and wood paneled walls of that rented room.
The church was led by Ruben, my grandpa and Carol, my grandma, and it was made up of residents from the nearby town of 700 people nestled in the San Luis Valley just outside of Rio Grande National Forest. My heart is full of memories from that small town of Antonito Colorado, and, as most Colorado memories do, most involve a few feet of snow. Every Christmas I can remember, was full of enchiladas, sopapillas, singing, and my grandpa smiling as he read the nativity story aloud.
Ruybalid history is woven into the San Luis valley just like the Conejos River snakes through it. We are a mix of Hispanic and Tewa Apache with a healthy dose of German and English thrown in. In Ruben’s childhood home, you would only hear Spanish spoken and he grew up singing old Spanish hymns and songs to the sheep as he herded them to their summer grazing grounds. When he retired, my grandpa returned to this valley to minister to the people he grew up with.
Ruben started a church when he moved back, and he used it to teach about God and continue fulfilling his life’s purpose as a minister. He loved the community, and he was known as a helper; the man who would always stop. He would stop to help people with flat tires, stop to give rides to hitchhikers, and, during winter storms, he would grab my dad and uncles, some shovels, and go looking for people who were stuck in the snow who needed to be freed. If you saw his red truck, you knew help was on the way. He lived every day looking for the chance to be someone’s good Samaritan. He never missed a chance to share about the Jesus he knew.
My Grandpa’s life of service came to an end a few weeks ago. After 94 years on earth of giving to his family, his church, and his community, he had few worldly possessions. His most cherished possessions were his faith, his marriage, and his family (and maybe his weekly trip to Dairy Queen). He was rich in the ways that mattered.
Over the past three years of learning the Spanish language, my skills improved with help from the team at Mission Adelante, while his hearing and health declined. The week before he died, he heard I was attending the Spanish-speaking church at Mission Adelante and insisted on sending me a Spanish/English bible. That book was his foundation, and as I hold the gifted bible in my hands, I cherish it even more.
“4 Aun si voy por valles tenebrosos,
no temo peligro alguno
porque tú estás a mi lado;
tu vara de pastor me reconforta.
…..6 La bondad y el amor me seguirán
todos los días de mi vida;
y en la casa del Señor
habitaré para siempre.
”
I’ve heard it said that Spanish is God’s language, so I know grandpa felt right at home when he made it to Heaven.
Te amo Abuelo. Hiciste bien, siervo bueno y fiel.
I love you Grandpa.Well done good and faithful servant.
