The value of preaching the Word of God

SUMMARY: The author visits Mercedes, a popular figure in the community who practices African syncretic religion. The author and a missionary talk to her about Jesus Christ and she eventually converts, abandoning her previous religious practices. The local church takes over to guide her in her new faith.

The day I visited Mercedes she was not expecting me. Surrounded by a pantheon of static and cold gods, luck of a 'divine' Africania with syncretic license of other devotions, she looked like one more goddess presiding over her altar of multicolored necklaces and saints retouched with the brush of her own hands. Mercedes is called 'Tanta' and she is the most frequented person in the place. Women without a husband, men with more than one. Godchildren of all races and human genders bring her offerings: "homos" and "we have", girls who lost their virtue and are already carrying their pregnancy without the hope of a father who will take care of it later, street merchants of cigars "Habanos" who request protection of the gods to guard against justice, boys who are already old because they trotted early on the drug steed and were left without apparent age and an explicit loneliness in their hearts.

As Mercedes welcomes everyone, she opened the door for us with her usual joy.