I finished up at Salem yesterday.
It was harder than I thought.
I´m not even sure why, up until the actual goodbye part I felt pretty calm and collected, and ready to leave.
But they made a big deal of it and made the day special…so somewhere in between the pizza for lunch (a big deal for salem!) and the road trip to the city and seeing the girls delight and fear when using escalators for the first time in Tikal Futura (shopping centre) and eating ice creams in Pollo Campero while each girl took a turn to say nice things to me and realising that there´s a good chance I might never see these people again, my heart started to ache…
And then when they dropped me off at my house late at night and prayed for me and each gave me a hug the tears started, and didn´t want to stop.
And I realised how much this country has taught me about loving people, about living in communities and about taking the time to make the effort to encourage someone and tell them when you appreciate them.
And I realised how much these precious girls have taught me about enjoying each day and making the most of opportunities despite the challenges life throws at us.
And I realised how much they´ve all taught me about generosity as they all piled my arms high with presents from their own limited treasure collections…stuffed toys, yo-yos, posters.
And I realised that children can actually become my really, really good friends, even if they are a third of my age; when I was having lonely-far away from friends and family-moments they gave me so much in the way of friendship and hugs and love and encouragement.
And I realised in spite of all the language difficulties and cultural differences that I have really connected with the people I´ve worked with and come to care for them so much.
And I realised that people and community and family and love really are the most important and fulfilling things in life…even though I´ve missed some comforts from home, like hot showers and carpet and having a car and speaking the language, they just don´t seem as important to me now and I would trade them in an instant for those real, true connections with people if I ever had to.
I have honestly never felt such sadness during a goodbye before…weird, deep, strange achy feelings…
But I am so glad I spent that time there in Salem, and so glad I let myself love these girls so much, and looking forward to opportunities to love more precious kids like this in the future….
Filed under: Deepness
I turned 23 this week. So I may not be about to kick the bucket but I am officially starting to feel old, and a little terrified at how fast the years are flying. I swear it feels like just last week that I turned 18.
Today I was listening to a podcast by my favourite author Don Miller about how our lives our like stories, we are the authors, and we have the chance to write an engaging and exciting story or a meaningless and empty one. Kind of cliche but it´s actually very inspiring. What kind of story will we write? A story that someone will want to read, with risk, love, sacrifice and adventure, or a story about a man who´s goal in life is to buy a volvo? (ok so he definitely phrased it much better….listen if you get a chance)
And in this feeling kinda old state it got me all inspired to live…just live. Dream. Laugh. Take risks. I don´t want life to just happen to me, to go through the motions, take the path of least resistance and one day wake up old. I want to happen to life.
You´ve heard all the cliches, ´live life to the full´, ´seize the moment´ etc.
But, what if they´re actually really good cliches.
It´s true…today is a blank page, and only you hold the pen. You get to choose what kind of story you will write. How you will treat those you love. How you will treat that beggar in the street. How many times you will laugh. If you will stay in that job you hate or do everything you can to find what fulfills you. How you can take that step of faith and run after what your heart beats for, maybe loving some AIDS orphans in Africa or joining a band.
¨Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn´t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream Discover.¨ ‘ Mark Twain
I read a book this week about a lady who moved to Lebanon with her husband to become missionaries, was working hard serving pregnant ladies in a health clinic when she was shot dead by a terrorist. A waste of a life, to put herself in such a dangerous situation, or a life well lived, lived to love and serve others, and laid down for a good cause? I´m not saying we should deliberately put ourselves in dangerous situations, but the fact is our lives are fragile.
Although we can reduce risk, death can actually surprise any of us, at any time.
So why do we let things like insecurities and fears hold us back? If there´s one thing I´ve learned this year it´s that we have so much to be thankful for and so many opportunities. I say let´s throw caution to the wind, find something that would be worth dying for, and then give everything we´ve got to live for it.
¨There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.¨
Doesn´t mean it´ll always be easy. I know I´ve had some emotionally challenging moments this year in Guatemala, dealing with sickness, a new language, feelings of isolation, culture shock and just plain homesickness. But the things I´ve learned, the changes that have happened in me, the people I´ve met, have all made it so worth the rough patches. And the rough patches themselves have been what have been the times I have grown the most.
So I challenge you…pick up that pen and write your story. Decide today what is important to you, laugh in the face of fear, love big, do something just for fun, let faith grow in your heart, play with a child, and just LIVE. You´ll never get this blank page back again.
I leave with you a quote from Rob McKee as quoted by Don Miller In this podcast:
¨Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear, for above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage. Courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully, but write boldly. Then like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.¨ Robert McKee
When cooking lunch every morning with Seño Sandra, we have nice chats about all sorts of random things. Ok, restricted as I am by my basic spanish, she definitely does the majority of talking (I can understand better than I speak it).
Tuesday morning, while chopping and peeling and dicing, she told me something that actually rather shocked me.
How when she found out that her third child was a girl, she was devastated.
Not because she doesn´t like girls, but because she felt so sorry that this little person had to face life as a woman. She told me she has suffered a lot for being female, and she just wanted to have sons because life is so much easier for them.
This surprised me because although I´ve seen a lack of respect for women from a lot of guys here, I never really considered that the situation is all that bad in this country. Women can go to school, work, choose who to marry (most of the time).
But then I started to think about all the women and girls I know here who have told me stories of being cheated on, abused, or harrassed in their families, churches and workplaces. And the majority of women have stories to tell.
I have heard multiple horrible stories of married pastors hitting on teenage girls when they are new to the churches, of husbands cheating on their wives multiple times, of ridiculous amounts of domestic violence (although unfortunately this applies to the women too).
All the girls in this home have suffered abuse before coming to the foundation.
One of our most intelligent girl´s mother doesn´t want her daughter in school because she thinks girls only need to know how to run a home and not how to read and write. She doesn´t see the point in trying to improve their lives…never mind that they live in a house made of scrap pieces of corrugated iron.
When I was staying with a catholic family my first month here, I was surprised to see how the wife waited hand and foot on her husband and didn´t sit down to eat until his every need was met. Culturally this was very new for me.
As fair skinned foreigners us volunteers get a ridiculous amount of attention from guys here, who will openly look you up and down, whistle, shout out suggestive comments. I´ve never felt threatened, but it does get annoying after awhile. When walking along roads a good half of the cars will beep their horns for your benefit (and sometimes you even get police cars flashing their lights and sirens).
So I realise life is a little tough for women here. You are generally expected to marry, young, cook and clean and have a truckload of kids. It appears much worse in indiginous country communities, where there seems to be very little education for women, very young marriages and the husband is definitely the head of the home.
We are so blessed as women in our western culture to have the freedom and respect that we have. But unfortunately this isn´t the reality for the majority of women in the world. Centuries old stereotypes and prejudices still remain strong in most of the planet that men have more value than women. Horrible abuses and things like honour killings are the norm in certain countries.
70% of the world’s poorest people are women and girls; one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused; and women account for just 17% of all parliamentarians worldwide. WomanKind
It made me so grateful to have the opportunities and protection and freedom that I have. Let´s do what we can for suffering sisters in the rest of the world.
One last thought…in spite of the problems here in Guatemala I do know some incredible, respectful and decent guys here. There is a real mix of poverty and wealth, ignorance and education in this country, so both extremes exist. This means that there are parts of the culture that are very similar to ours. And I also want to say that Sandra´s daughter, Dulce, is very much adored and a happy little 4 year old girl.
Filed under: Deepness
¨We don´t understand that we have much more than we need because the poor have much less than they need. We consume the resources of the earth far out of proportion to our numbers, while others go hungry and die for lack of life´s basic necessities. In other words, our standard of living is rotted in injustice. Our hope is others despair; our good life perpetuates their misery.¨ – Jim Wallis, The Call to Conversion
30,000 people will die today from preventable diseases.
40% of the world´s population live on $2USD or less a day.
A child dies of hunger every 16 seconds.
You´ve heard it all before. Seen the World Vision adds. Worn the Make Poverty History bracelets.
But have you ever stopped to think past the statistics…and imagine what that means for the individual?
What it must actually feel like to be 15 years old, both parents dead from aids, trying to figure out how the hell you are going to raise and feed your 5 younger siblings? Or to live and work and raise your kids in a rubbish dump and have absolutely no options for alternatives and to have never seen life outside of the rubbish dump….
I can´t get used to seeing kids working. Selling food on buses. Sorting through rubbish in the dumps to find things to sell. Seemingly hundreds of shoe-shine boys in the park all vying to shine the few pairs of shoes walking around for 2-3Q (less than 60cents).
It still doesn´t seem right that I can go into a nice cafe and have a chai late and cake, only to leave a minute later to walk past 3 mothers begging on the sidewalk with their babies laying beside them and toss them 1Q (20cents).
If I actually believe the gospel (¨I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me…¨ Matt 25:45) then when I walk past those ladies, I pretty much am just ignoring Jesus…strange thought hey?
¨The divide between the haves and the have-nots is non acceptable. Writing of 90% of the planet? We will be judged by God for that…¨ – Bono
I still don´t have the answers. I know that throwing a picnic for the shoe shine boys one day hasn´t changed their lives. And I know that life can be hard enough as it is sometimes. But maybe our happiness isn´t to be found in stuff and success and entertainment. Sometimes when we get our eyes off our problems and do something for someone else, that´s where we find our healing and strength.
I challenge you to look beyond statistics and think of the person behind them that is really, really struggling to make it through today.
I challenge you to do something. Not fix everything. But do something.
¨Don´t wait for strangers to remind you of your duty. You have a conscience and a spirit for that. All the good you do must come from your own initiative.¨ From the Popul Vuh
Sponsor A Kid. Volunteer. Donate. Host a fundraiser. Campaign for human rights. Learn about human trafficking. Go and see for yourself. Pray. Read. Watch documentaries. Write and encourage someone out in the field.
And take a moment to appreciate the provision, justice, security, comfort and freedom of your life today.
¨Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh & blood?…¨Isaiah 58 6-8
¨Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn´t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.¨ Mark Twain
You will learn to communicate without words. You will meet photojournalists and paramedics and helicopter pilots. You will spend whole nights laughing about nothing with your crazy english friend. You will be offered tea with floating ants in it to fix your sick stomach. You will meet amazingly strong single mothers who have already had 2 husbands die and yet keep going on. You will read the Bible through different eyes. You will learn how beautiful non-western clothing can be. You will get famliar with seeing soldiers and guns. You will get to have spur-of-the-moment picnics with shoe shine boys. You will learn to think ahead. You will learn to live with fleas. You will learn how to play racing demons. You will see things more breathtaking than you can ever imagine. You will learn to receive help from strangers. You will learn to be flexible and open to change. You will learn not to sweat the small stuff and to appreciate everything. You will get used to being stared at. You will realise what you love most about home and will truly appreciate the people and comforts there. You will ride in the back of utes (pickups) with 20 people around crazy mountain bends. You will learn to say goodbye a lot. You will spend whole days in the bathroom. You will learn a different meaning of community. You will taste amazing things. You will find out just how strong you really are. You will realise that the way you´ve always thought things should be done is not actually the only way that things should be done. You will climb active volcanos and cruise on boats on underground lakes. You will fall in love. You will learn how little you need to get by. You will learn to improvise. You will learn to pray. You learn to live with risk and danger. You will learn patience and how to wait. You will experience amazing hospitality. You will experience emotionally the highest highs and the lowest lows. You will come to appreciate the internet. You will learn to sleep anywhere. You will find that somehow, things always work out. You will see strange things like a ski slope in a shopping centre in the desert. You will get a funny accent. You will be woken up by earthquakes. You will end up with the best photo album.
Expand your world. And while you´re at it, come visit me.
I´d like to introduce you to an amazing person. She´s 8. She lives in the girl´s home. Ridiculously cheerful. Always the first to greet me (¨Seño Gema!!!¨) and give a big hug and kiss. Never without a smile. Always has a word of encouragement for my shocking spanish, or my ridiculous drawings on my english posters. Cheeky, yes will avoid chores whenever possible but never gives bad attitude about it. Never complains, even when sick. Always ready to share ice cream and marbles. Gets right into praise at church.
For someone who has faced abuse, extreme poverty and rejection in her short life and still has a tough future ahead of her, her attitude and generosity are an absolute inspiration. We could learn a lot from her.
I thought I was coming here to help these kids; funny thing is she has helped me realise that they have as much if not more to offer me than I have to give to them.
I don´t have favourites; all the girls are incredible and give me so much through their friendships and I will introduce you to more of them soon.
But there is no doubt that she is something special.
Filed under: Deepness
My trusty little Samsung SGH-E370 slide phone and I have been good pals for two and a half years now. It works amazingly well, considering the ridiculous number of times I have dropped it on concrete, and it serves all my phone needs (calls, txts, wakes me up) so I haven´t seen the need to upgrade to the latest iPhone in a hurry.
At home in Australia, the majority didn´t seem to understand my reasoning and I remember getting countless comments about the age of my phone, how uncool I was and why didn´t I upgrade already??
Funny thing is here, I have had just as many countless comments about phone…only this time, how nice it is, how it has games and so many applications, did you really pay nothing for it and would I please give it to them when I leave Guatemala?
¨But it doesn´t have spanish…¨
¨No me importa!! I can still speak in spanish on it…¨
It´s all relative hey. Good to get a perspective check.
Appreciate what you´ve got and don´t live for stuff
GUATEMALA CITY — An average of 16 murder victims turn up in Guatemala every day, some shot, some stabbed, some bludgeoned, and only about 3 percent of the cases are ever solved.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/world/americas/22guatemala.html?ref=global-home
Guatemala is second only to Haiti in Latin America for its incidence of child mortality due to malnourishment; with half of the population of children age 0-6 suffering from some degree of malnourishment…
http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/23514/
The more than 5,400 homicides reported last year in Guatemala – a nation of approximately 13 million – was nearly equal to the number of murders in neighboring Mexico, which has more than 100 million inhabitants and is the scene of open war among rival drug cartels.
More than a hundred women have been slain in the Central American country thus far this year.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=334959&CategoryId=23558
I don’t mean to portray only a negative Guatemala. It is a beautiful country, full of incredible, hospitable, hard working and faith-filled people; full of projects filled with hope and vision to bring change to people’s lives; full of beautiful mountains, jungles and beaches.
And this is why we can’t ignore the amount of corruption that pervades almost every level of society here. We can’t ignore the gangs that run the cities through extortion, running businesses into ruin and killing those who can’t or just won’t pay. We can’t ignore the amount of domestic violence and abuse.
Somehow, in the face of overwhelming statistics and increases in violence, we need to keep within us a new hope and vision for this country…
Sometimes it would be so easy to just see the issues as too big and the life too difficult, and run back to a comfy, safe and easy life. But if we don’t stand up for this generation, who will? What kind of obligation do we who have been blessed with wealth, education, and justice have to those who have no way to feed their family tonight through no fault of their own?
There are already 25,000 NGO’s working in Guatemala. Already 30% evangelical christians. And yet the poverty rate stays the same and the violence increases. Honestly, I actually don’t have a clue how to bring about any sort of change. I certainly don’t want to be a self-righteous foreigner who comes in from a ‘better’ country to try and impose my own solutions. But I figure the first place to start is to get a determination to see change. Even if it’s just in the life of one person. Even if it’s just being willing to support a Guatemalan with an incredible vision.
Let’s get a vision bigger than ourselves, our insecurities, our comfort and live lives worth living.
Give love to the ones who can’t love at all,
Give hope to the ones who have no hope at all…
Stand up for the ones who can’t stand at all…
– Jon Foreman
