Chapter 1: A Letter to God Dust of Snow Fire and Ice

Lencho had complete faith in God as he was instructed that God could see everything and helped whoever was in deep trouble. Given below are a few sentences which exhibit his faith in God:

1. But in the hearts of all who lived in that solitary house in the middle of the valley, there was a single hope of help from God.
2. All through the night, Lencho thought only of his one hope: the help of God, whose eyes, as he had been instructed, see everything, even what is deep in one’s conscience.
3. “God”, he wrote, “if you don’t help me, my family and I will go hungry this year”.
4. He wrote ‘To God’ on the envelope, put the letter inside and still troubled, went to town.
5. God could not have made a mistake, nor could he have denied Lencho what he had requested.
6. It said: “God: Of the money that I asked for, only seventy pesos reached me. Send me the rest, since I need it very much”.

The postmaster was deeply moved by Lencho’s faith in God. Hence, he decided to send some money to Lencho in order to avoid shaking the latter’s faith in God. So, he collected some money from his colleagues and friends and signed the letter as ‘God’. The postmaster felt it was an ideal ploy to convey a message to Lencho that God has sent him the money and that God himself signed it.

No, Lencho did not try to find out who had sent him the money because he was confident that God had sent it to him. Not for a moment did he suspect that someone else other than God could have sent the money to him. His faith in the Almighty was so rock-solid that he knew that nothing escapes God’s eyes. Lencho felt that God was aware of the unfortunate incident faced by him and requested him to save him from this difficult situation.

Upon counting the money, when Lencho found only seventy pesos in the envelope instead of the hundred pesos that he had requested from God, he was confident that the Almighty couldn’t have made such a big mistake. From this situation, he suspected that the post office employees could have stolen the remaining thirty pesos from the envelope. Hence, he called them crooks.

The element of irony in this situation is that Lencho ends up suspecting those very people who helped him in his crisis, in order to avoid shaking his faith in God.

It is not easy to find people like Lencho in the real world as he has a naïve and unquestioning nature. From the story, we can conclude that he is not stupid. He is a literate person who wrote a letter to God without any address requesting for money. Lencho had deep faith in God and was confident that he would definitely receive some financial help from the Almighty.

The conflicts between humans and nature are shown in the story when Lencho’s crops are destroyed by the hailstorm. He had expected some good rain for a good harvest. However, when his crops were damaged by the hailstorm, he lost all hope and became sad at the sight of his destroyed field.

However, the story also depicts conflicts of humans between themselves. The postmaster collected some money from his colleagues and friends and gave a part of his salary to help Lencho so that the latter’s faith in God is not shaken. It was a beautiful act of selflessness and kindness on their part. Despite their noble act, when Lencho received the money, he blindly believed that God had sent him the money, and he blamed the post office employees for stealing some money from the envelope. This implies that man lacks faith in his fellow human beings, which gives rise to conflicts among themselves.