Eight months. Four projects. Three countries. One adventure.
There is no feeling like knowing you have made an impact on a person’s life, however small. To leave your footprint, your mark, or even the tiniest piece of your heart in another place is to truly make the most of life. To walk along a dusty road and find the local kids sharing a game you taught them with their friends at school. To see little boys, teenage girls, and grown women weeping as you wave goodbye. To hear a four year old say, “I’ll never forget your name.” It makes every miserable plane ride, every grossly large spider, and every heartbroken tear one hundred and ten percent worth it.
Although I may have been depressed after leaving Peru, working with the Hoss Foundation Gift Project kept me too busy to dwell on it. It was my first “real” job (or as real as you can get without being paid). I worked in an office and took a lunch break just like a grown up (though I can’t deny that my heart is still trapped in Never Never Land). I reviewed applications for Christmas aid that were heart wrenching and found that poverty was not merely a distant issue but also a problem in my own community.
After New Year’s, I headed off on my second trip. I expected Honduras to be like Peru, but it was a totally different world. The Spanish was different. The culture was different. And the “city” I stayed in was beyond different. Ojojona redefined my definition of “rural.” We got homemade tortillas from the neighbor across the street. We bought eggs from Karla whose chickens laid their eggs all over her house. Oscar cut the knee-high grass with a machete, and deadly poisonous snakes lived in the backyard. I even found myself out in the field with big rubber galoshes feeding the goats like a good ‘ole farm girl.
Although I taught Sunday school, recorder, Bible study, art, and English in Honduras, I learned much more than I taught. Lesson number 1: The world does not revolve around Josy Tarantini. Of course, I’ve always known this to be true, but it didn’t carry real meaning until I spent three months living with two and four year old girls and a baby. I saw that having a family is a lot harder than it looks and that it involves a great deal of self-sacrifice. I learned so much about being a servant and putting others’ needs above my own. And this led to lesson number 2: Life is better if the world DOESN’T revolve around Josy Tarantini. In being a servant, I found that selflessness actually brought more satisfaction and happiness than doing things my own way. For the first time, I began to understood Jesus’ whole “first will be last and last will be first” paradox.
Throughout my three months in Honduras, I met a lot of people who live HARD lives. I befriended a single mom who lived with her whole extended family and only got paid every 3 months. I taught little boys that would work on a chicken farm (cutting their beaks off or something awful like that) to make extra money for their families. I talked to a guy who believed he was possessed by demons. I went to church with a family that spent their “free time” picking coffee (a job considered to be the lowest of lows) to support themselves. Not to mention that I lived with a family who works harder every day than I work in a week at home. This led to gratefulness for a million and one things I’d always taken for granted.
Honduras being my first real mission trip, it was definitely an eye opening experience. Spiritual warfare always seemed to be throwing a wrench in our plans and hopes. Isolation led to a constant hunger for fellowship. Finances were always high on our prayer list, and we had to explain the most important things in the world–salvation, faith, repentance – in another language! I saw that starting a ministry is a long process that can be slow to yield fruit. It’s tough. But serving God with all you are and all you do is certainly worth that and more!
Coming back home was difficult in a lot of ways. Even now I feel restless, eager to get back out there and do what I was made to do. Keeping busy has helped me ease my adjustment to normalcy. When I first got back, I worked with WVU Upward Bound. Once again, I found myself in an office doing administrative work but this time to help low income high school students who want to be first generation college students. I spent a lot of time requesting food donations for their summer program. This might sound like a tedious task, but it was good for me. At a time in my life where it was easy to judge the world, to stereotype Americans as rich, greedy, and selfish, it was helpful to see tons of businesses around Morgantown donate food and gift cards to help these kids. Seeing their generosity was a reminder that I am not alone in wanting to make a difference.
Now, though, even my internship with Upward Bound is over. It’s hard sometimes, knowing that this gap year has come to an end and that four years of books and exams lie ahead. It’s hard to be a world away from the children who first captured my heart and to move from the house of missionaries to a college dorm. But I suppose it’s just time for a new adventure. Although I may not find 21 people living in a mud house in Lexington, Virginia, who’s to say that a homeless man with no family is in any less need of Christ’s love? After all, it’s not location that makes me who I am but the hands of the Potter. And He has made me many things.
I am a dreamer. I believe that I have the power to change people, to change lives, and to change the world.
I can’t claim to have changed these people’s lives. They live just as they did before I came. Their clothes are just as dirty, their houses just as ramshackle, and their lives just as difficult. But if I brought them one smile, one laugh, or one necessity they didn’t have before, I made a difference. And when you add up a hundred little differences, maybe three hundred or a thousand, you see an impact. And is not an impact the first step on the road to a greater change?
Who am I kidding, though? I can’t even pretend to think that I influenced these people half as much as they influenced me. I gave them shoes or some new English vocabulary or a glow stick, but they gave me passion. Purpose. Life. How do I even begin to reflect on what I’ve learned?
It started in Peru. My first adventure. A world of new experiences from flying alone to leaving the country to riding in a taxi. My first real look at poverty and my first broken heart.
Who am I kidding, though? I can’t even pretend to think that I influenced these people half as much as they influenced me. I gave them shoes or some new English vocabulary or a glow stick, but they gave me passion. Purpose. Life. How do I even begin to reflect on what I’ve learned?
It started in Peru. My first adventure. A world of new experiences from flying alone to leaving the country to riding in a taxi. My first real look at poverty and my first broken heart.
There is some small part of me that got off that bus in Huancayo and never made it back home. Whether it was a sliver of my heart or a piece of my innocence, my naivety, I feel its absence. I feel it when I wake up from a dream about the kids there, and I feel it at the mall when guilt wraps its arms around my ankles as I walk to the register.
In Peru, I saw that my life MATTERS. Those kids -- those precious, amazing, hilarious kids that love Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber and soccer and the Titanic-- loved ME. I had something to offer them. And not just my language but my culture, my hobbies, and my childhood favorite everythings.
To them, I was rich in a million ways. I, a graduated high school student with no job, had more money than any of them probably ever would. My life was full; I had two parents, a house, an education, a future. But I believe the kids saw that I was willing and eager to share my possessions, material and otherwise, with each and every one of them. And today, as they wear my shirt or play with the teddy bear I bought them, I hope they remember me.
For three months, I lived with a Peruvian family. I ate their food, experienced their culture, and painted their fingernails. I despised their lack of punctuality and planning, but I saw that it led to a comparatively stress free life. I befriended volunteers from Australia, England, Utah, and Florida and made a lifelong friend in my polar opposite. I rode a horse through the actual Middle of Nowhere and climbed waterfalls in the Amazon. I roasted marshmallows over tea candles and had a blast playing Capture the Flag with a bunch of little kids. I spun kindergartners around until I was beyond dizzy, taught kids the Chicken Dance, and directed my class’ theatrical rendition of Shrek2. I made memories that will last FOR.EVER.
And them? They begged me not to leave. They gave me bracelets and necklaces and random little ornaments. They wrote me letters, drew me pictures, and cried on my shoulder. They made me promise to return. And I did. I will.
In Peru, I saw that my life MATTERS. Those kids -- those precious, amazing, hilarious kids that love Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber and soccer and the Titanic-- loved ME. I had something to offer them. And not just my language but my culture, my hobbies, and my childhood favorite everythings.
To them, I was rich in a million ways. I, a graduated high school student with no job, had more money than any of them probably ever would. My life was full; I had two parents, a house, an education, a future. But I believe the kids saw that I was willing and eager to share my possessions, material and otherwise, with each and every one of them. And today, as they wear my shirt or play with the teddy bear I bought them, I hope they remember me.
For three months, I lived with a Peruvian family. I ate their food, experienced their culture, and painted their fingernails. I despised their lack of punctuality and planning, but I saw that it led to a comparatively stress free life. I befriended volunteers from Australia, England, Utah, and Florida and made a lifelong friend in my polar opposite. I rode a horse through the actual Middle of Nowhere and climbed waterfalls in the Amazon. I roasted marshmallows over tea candles and had a blast playing Capture the Flag with a bunch of little kids. I spun kindergartners around until I was beyond dizzy, taught kids the Chicken Dance, and directed my class’ theatrical rendition of Shrek2. I made memories that will last FOR.EVER.
And them? They begged me not to leave. They gave me bracelets and necklaces and random little ornaments. They wrote me letters, drew me pictures, and cried on my shoulder. They made me promise to return. And I did. I will.
Although I may have been depressed after leaving Peru, working with the Hoss Foundation Gift Project kept me too busy to dwell on it. It was my first “real” job (or as real as you can get without being paid). I worked in an office and took a lunch break just like a grown up (though I can’t deny that my heart is still trapped in Never Never Land). I reviewed applications for Christmas aid that were heart wrenching and found that poverty was not merely a distant issue but also a problem in my own community.
After New Year’s, I headed off on my second trip. I expected Honduras to be like Peru, but it was a totally different world. The Spanish was different. The culture was different. And the “city” I stayed in was beyond different. Ojojona redefined my definition of “rural.” We got homemade tortillas from the neighbor across the street. We bought eggs from Karla whose chickens laid their eggs all over her house. Oscar cut the knee-high grass with a machete, and deadly poisonous snakes lived in the backyard. I even found myself out in the field with big rubber galoshes feeding the goats like a good ‘ole farm girl.
Although I taught Sunday school, recorder, Bible study, art, and English in Honduras, I learned much more than I taught. Lesson number 1: The world does not revolve around Josy Tarantini. Of course, I’ve always known this to be true, but it didn’t carry real meaning until I spent three months living with two and four year old girls and a baby. I saw that having a family is a lot harder than it looks and that it involves a great deal of self-sacrifice. I learned so much about being a servant and putting others’ needs above my own. And this led to lesson number 2: Life is better if the world DOESN’T revolve around Josy Tarantini. In being a servant, I found that selflessness actually brought more satisfaction and happiness than doing things my own way. For the first time, I began to understood Jesus’ whole “first will be last and last will be first” paradox.
Throughout my three months in Honduras, I met a lot of people who live HARD lives. I befriended a single mom who lived with her whole extended family and only got paid every 3 months. I taught little boys that would work on a chicken farm (cutting their beaks off or something awful like that) to make extra money for their families. I talked to a guy who believed he was possessed by demons. I went to church with a family that spent their “free time” picking coffee (a job considered to be the lowest of lows) to support themselves. Not to mention that I lived with a family who works harder every day than I work in a week at home. This led to gratefulness for a million and one things I’d always taken for granted.
Honduras being my first real mission trip, it was definitely an eye opening experience. Spiritual warfare always seemed to be throwing a wrench in our plans and hopes. Isolation led to a constant hunger for fellowship. Finances were always high on our prayer list, and we had to explain the most important things in the world–salvation, faith, repentance – in another language! I saw that starting a ministry is a long process that can be slow to yield fruit. It’s tough. But serving God with all you are and all you do is certainly worth that and more!
Coming back home was difficult in a lot of ways. Even now I feel restless, eager to get back out there and do what I was made to do. Keeping busy has helped me ease my adjustment to normalcy. When I first got back, I worked with WVU Upward Bound. Once again, I found myself in an office doing administrative work but this time to help low income high school students who want to be first generation college students. I spent a lot of time requesting food donations for their summer program. This might sound like a tedious task, but it was good for me. At a time in my life where it was easy to judge the world, to stereotype Americans as rich, greedy, and selfish, it was helpful to see tons of businesses around Morgantown donate food and gift cards to help these kids. Seeing their generosity was a reminder that I am not alone in wanting to make a difference.
Now, though, even my internship with Upward Bound is over. It’s hard sometimes, knowing that this gap year has come to an end and that four years of books and exams lie ahead. It’s hard to be a world away from the children who first captured my heart and to move from the house of missionaries to a college dorm. But I suppose it’s just time for a new adventure. Although I may not find 21 people living in a mud house in Lexington, Virginia, who’s to say that a homeless man with no family is in any less need of Christ’s love? After all, it’s not location that makes me who I am but the hands of the Potter. And He has made me many things.
I am a dreamer. I believe that I have the power to change people, to change lives, and to change the world.
I am a realist. I don’t seek to do the impossible. I simply follow God and leave those things to Him.
I am a rebel. I am not satisfied with conforming to what everyone else does. I choose the narrow way.
I am a follower. I pursue Jesus Christ and His plan for my life.
I am a warrior. I seek to fight poverty: to loose the chains of injustice, feed the hungry, shelter the wanderer, and clothe the naked (Is 58).
I am a warrior. I seek to fight poverty: to loose the chains of injustice, feed the hungry, shelter the wanderer, and clothe the naked (Is 58).
I am a peacemaker. I aim to heal broken relationships and bring unity among friends.
I am a missionary. I take the message of salvation wherever I go.
I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student, a teenager, a Christian.
I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student, a teenager, a Christian.
I am a piece of clay that is slowly becoming a holy vessel.
I am shaped by everything. Shaped by God.
Isaiah 64:8 “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay; you are the potter. We are all the work of your hand.”
2 comments:
Finally got comments up and running again...Josy
I love this post so much. Couldn't comment on it the first time I read it though. Glad you got the comments up and running again. This may be my favorite post of yours ever. Well done, Josy:)
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