Life is short and we are all called to be the light of
Christ to all those we encounter. For me, Christ’s love, support, and guidance
carries me through each day, week, month, and year. His peace and grace keeps
me going and leads me to joyfully share this divine love, peace, and grace with
the world. As we experienced the communities and people of Zacapa, the
continued reminder of God’s love found in the simple, plain, small things makes
such a huge difference in one’s life over the majestic, fancy, grand things
sought by many.
The smiles and excitement found with the children as you
jump rope with them with your imaginary jump ropes melts your hearts. The
passion and sacrifice of a big sister to share her small glass of water with
her siblings can do nothing but touch your heart and make you think how often
you are selfish with the things in our life. The shock and delight in the boys’
eyes when I scored not one but two futbol goals within minutes of stepping out
on the field. But even more being an example and encourager for the girls to
come out and play futbol with the boys. Though out of shape, I had a blast
playing futbol again.
How would life be different if we stopped to share our
success and/or talents with those around us? We are not all called to travel
overseas. We are not all called to share our time at a soup kitchen or a
daycare or a nursing home. We may not all be called to provide our direct
talents through service but our talents through our careers to provide means
for others to earn an income and/or go serve in the community as they are called.
Thanks to all those who share their success for folks like me to go be Christ’s
light in this world or for you yourself to go out and be Christ’s light.
One of the big struggles, I had on this journey was the
comparison of this trip to my trip to Ghana, Africa six years ago. It was
unfair to me and to the community of Guatemala for me to compare but still it
was hard to escape. The second challenge was the language but not in a way you
would think. The struggle came from knowing when I graduated from high school
and spent a week in Puerto Rico; I could carry on some conversations in Spanish
as well as knew my prayers in Spanish. Though I had spent the month prior
working on my Spanish through a Rosetta Stone program, my Spanish was far from
conversational and knowledgeable.
Though a challenge, my favorite day of service was day 5
spent at the HIM complex as we had no strong translators on site with us. I
spent a rewarding day learning and practicing Spanish with Henry as we tried to
communicate and organize the various projects to be completed onsite. Henry’s
patience and willingness to stop what he was doing to try to explain and even
demonstrate what he was looking for was amazing. At the end of the day as we
were talking he started to ask if we were from a church and shared “God brought
us here to do his work and our work was excellent.” Thanks to Katie, one of the
high school students, who assisted in the translation! She too was very
valuable with her Spanish speaking skills.
On another day, one of the HIM members shared a wise thought
about language barriers and the westernized world. We, especially in the USA,
expect individuals who come from other countries to speak English, and when we
go into their country, we usually expect the same thing for them to be able to
speak English. For me the experience is not just about providing our talents
and being able to explore the world. Instead, we are on a journey and should
challenge ourselves to embrace the culture around us, to drop our 1st
world blinders and expectations and let the people, culture around us provide
direction and insight. We can gain so much truth, knowledge, faith, hope,
peace, love through the welcoming and understanding of others and where they
are in this world.
Fotos Reflexion Personal
Fotos Reflexion Personal
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