When we went, I had so many apprehensions. I hadn't taken Spanish in a few years, and I was worried about trying to talk to the kids and about if something happened, how I would begin to explain what I needed to with the minimal Spanish that I felt I would be able to remember. I wasn't ready to leave home, and I wasn't really ready to be back at UD either, but amidst those feelings was this feeling of going to basically a different world an trying to figure out who I was there and what God had planned for me there. It was like a totally different realm that I was entering into: like a weird Narnia that I was finding somewhere in the air between Dayton and San Diego where we touched down.
And it did kind of become like a weird sort of Narnia for me.
I have never been out of the country to do service before; it is often said that the service that people do in other countries is more beneficial for those doing the service than it is for those you are serving. And while I can't say what we did meant to the orphanage we stayed at meant anything for them, but I know it touched and changed each of the six of us from UD that went on this trip.
When we first arrived, it seemed as if there was a definitive gap between us and the people. Even while we had Flower with us, we were nervous to try to talk in our awful Spanish to the kids, and they weren't entirely sure what to think of us, either. We slowly began to talk to them, but the first day or two was a lot of smiling and attempting to communicate things simply with how we were carrying ourselves in the situation. We began to understand that all those kids really needed from us was to be loved.
And while we were there from Sunday to Sunday, we did a lot of stuff. We painted at a women's shelter connected to the orphanage and it was no small undertaking. We went across the border a few times and got various things and brought them back with us. We painted at the orphanage we were staying at, and at the sister orphanage in the countryside. We did yardwork in the sun, and we sorted mountains upon mountains of donated clothes for hours upon end.
But while we did all of those things, that was not what made the week as wonderfully alive and full of God as it was. It was the time that we spent with the kids. The orphanage we were staying at housed about 20 teen orphans, and we spent every night of the week that we were there just hanging out with the kids. Teaching them American games, trying to let them teach us Mexican games, playing basketball, laughing with them, dancing with them, learning their stories, and being loved by them.
We spent three of our mornings and afternoons at the other orphanage in the countryside as well, and there were 30-50 kids under the age of 15 staying at that orphanage. When we were there, the kids wanted nothing more than just to play with us and be around us, and let us pick them up and carry them around and give them the attention that they deserve as children. It was exhausting being so active and trying so hard to communicate with these kids all week when I did not even speak their language. But I have never felt more full and alive than I did when I was spending time with those orphans. These kids have faced so many hard times, and many of them have lost parents or siblings, and some of them even have parents who can no longer care for them. But many of these orphans are just that, while they are being cared for at the orphanage that is becoming their home and their family, they will never be able to be adopted for various reasons, and that nearly broke my heart in half.
Basically, I learned more in my week in Mexico than I ever expected to be able to learn in one week. While I was there, I received so much love from those orphans, and even though I think that I love a lot in my life, these kids taught me what pure genuine Godly love is like to receive, and all I could do was love them back as much as I could. While I was there, I saw God more than I have ever seen Him before, and that amazed me because He is already so present and abounding in my life, I did not expect to go somewhere and see Him even more than I already do. But He started moving in a new way in my life and in my heart, and I feel like more than anything I am affirmed in the fact that I just want to live my life totally for Him.
Along with that, I am now back here trying to find a purpose in the purposelessness of college. Now don't get me wrong, I love so much about Dayton. Being here doing the amazing things that I get to do and getting to love all of the amazing people in my life here is totally worthwhile. But the thing is, being in Mexico with those kids and spending the whole week with God showed me that there is such a greater purpose in life for me. Doing that felt like so much more than being here and doing homework and participating in activities that feel kind of purposeless. But I know that all of these things have purpose in forming and shaping me into the person that will be ready for an even greater purpose once college is ready to be rid of me. I am searching for God's purpose in me in all of this purposelessness wonderful that is UD and college and right now.
There was an American intern/missionary that is there for a year with the kids, staying at the orphanage and spending time with them and just loving on them. She said several things during the week that really resounded with me. One of these things is that we grow comfortable in our faiths. Particularly in college, we find ourselves in a position where we are like Jesus' disciples. We are all together in a comfortable environment having God's love poured into us and never wanting to be away from that. We are His disciples, we are His vessels. But eventually, there comes a time when we must separate to different places and use the love that God has poured into us and be disciples to the world, pouring that love God gave us into them. And even though we may no longer be comfortable, we are living. In Mexico, I felt uncomfortable, but I knew that God's love was with me in a new way, and getting to share the love that has been poured into me was truly a beautiful experience. I am striving to live my life as one of Jesus' disciples.
The other thing she said that became kind of a joke for us throughout the week was when she asked one of the teens a question. In Spanish, the word for sister and the word for beautiful are very similar. Sister is hermana and beautiful is hermosa. She tried to ask one of the girls where her sister was, but instead said, "Donde esta su hermosa?" Where is your beautiful?
While this was a huge joke between our group and her the entire week, thinking back to my trip and where I am at now, I find myself asking that kind of question a lot more.
Where is your beautiful? Where is your greatest love being placed, and your greatest passion, and all that God has given you to be?
Basically, going to Mexico has made my heart open. God is moving in my life in a totally new way, and I also cannot get those kids and their faces and their stories and their LOVE for me and life itself out of my heart and my mind. I have stopped wanting things to be good, and rather, I just want to be alive. We miss so much if we only are experiencing the "good" things that are given to us. Through the pain and the sorrow and the change and movement of everything we can find peace and joy and love and a sense of life that is new and wonderful.
I am in a new search for my "beautiful."
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