by G. L. Fuentes
A tale of unwavering faith, an earnest request, and an act of kindness .
“All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God.”
Answer the following questions:
1) What did Lencho hope for?
Lencho hoped for a good shower of rain. He wanted this for his crop of corn that he had sown.
2) Why did Lencho say the raindrops were like ‘new coins’?
The raindrops were shining like new silver coins. Further, once the rain would be good, the crop also would be nice. Therefore, this crop would bring him money. So, he compared the raindrops with coins.
3) How did the rain change? What happened to Lencho’s fields?
The raindrops suddenly changed to large hailstones. Strong wind also started to blow. This hailstorm did not stop, and soon the whole field was covered with snow. This destroyed Lencho’s fields completely. Not a leaf remained on the trees, and even all the flowers were gone.
4) What were Lencho’s feelings when the hail stopped?
Lencho was at first happy when the rain came. However, when it changed to hailstorm, Lencho became a little worried. And finally, when the hailstorm destroyed his whole field, he was filled with deep sadness. The night was a sorrowful one, and he feared that his family would starve the coming year.
5) Who or what did Lencho have faith in? What did he do? Pick out the sentence in the story that tells you this.
Lencho had complete faith in God. He decided to write a letter to Him, to inform Him about the situation of his family and to demand some money from Him to survive.
Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience.
6) Who read the letter? What were their reactions?
First, one of the postmen read the letter. Then, the postmaster read the letter. Both of them laughed at first. However, the postmaster later became serious. He admired the unshakeable and deep faith of Lencho in God. He was really impressed by this.
7) What did the postmaster do then? Why?
The postmaster did not want to break Lencho’s faith in God. Therefore, he decided to write a reply and send money to Lencho. He gathered some money from his staff, and even he contributed in the collection. He wrote the letter and signed it as God so that Lencho would believe that the letter was actually written by God.
8) Was Lencho surprised to find a letter for him with money in it?
Lencho had so much faith in God that he expected that God would certainly write back. So, when he actually received the letter, he was not at all surprised.
9) What made him angry?
When Lencho opened the letter, he discovered that there were only 70 pesos. He had demanded 100 pesos from God. Here, he thought that the post-office staff was a bunch of crooks and they had stolen the remaining 30 pesos from the envelope. This made him angry.
10) Did Lencho try to find out who had sent the money to him? Why/Why not?
No, he did not try to find out who had sent the money. Lencho had such immense faith in God that he thought only God could have sent money. According to his belief, he also thought that God might never make such a mistake. He never thought logically that it might have been some humans who were trying to help. He was completely blinded by his faith in God, and even blamed the post-office staff of stealing 30 pesos.
11) Who does Lencho think has taken the rest of the money? What is the irony in the situation?
(Remember that the irony of a situation is an unexpected aspect of it. An ironic situation is strange or amusing because it is the opposite of what is expected.)
Lencho thought that the post-office staff was a bunch of crooks, and they had taken the remaining 30 pesos.
The irony here is that Lencho blamed the post-office staff for taking the remaining 30 pesos, whereas actually they were the people who had given Lencho those 70 pesos. Instead of receiving gratitude, the post-office staff received blame and accusations from Lencho.
12) Are there people like Lencho in the real world? What kind of a person would you say he is?
You may select appropriate words from the box to answer the question.
greedy, naïve, stupid, ungrateful, selfish, comical, unquestioning |
Yes, there are people like Lencho who have doubtless faith in God. This faith so blinding that they even fail to see humanity around them.
Therefore, we can say Lencho is naïve as he did not understand a simple thing about help from the post-office staff.
He is also ungrateful as he did not thank the post-office staff, nor did he thank God for 70 pesos.
He is unquestioning as he has an unquestioning faith in God.
13) There are two kinds of conflict in the story: between humans and nature, and between humans themselves. How are these conflicts illustrated?
The conflict between humans and nature is illustrated by the event when hailstorm destroys Lencho’s crop of corn.
The conflict between humans themselves is illustrated by the misunderstanding between Lencho and the post-office staff. The post-office staff had actually sent the money, but Lencho thought that they were the ones who had stolen the missing money.
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