My Story. Part 2 - El Primero Invierno

My first trip (click and read if you haven't yet) completely blew me away. For those of you who know me, my "diary" is essentially the conversations I have with my friends via instant messaging (which are automatically all saved by my computer). From looking back and reading over the conversations for the weeks following November 12th, 2005, I could see that all I could talk about with my friends was my trip.

Seeing the disposition of the kids in the light of all of their troubles enlightened me, in a way, and I saw the world in a new light. It didn't completely change my life (at least, not yet), but I put me on the track. Still, back then, I believed that Thailand was the ultimate destination of this road for me, and that Mexico was just a series of stepping stones there. I couldn't have known that, that summer, the Thailand trip would be canceled due to unforeseeable circumstances.

For the next few weeks I dwelled over the few pictures I took on my cell phone over the trip. I wrote down stories of that one-day trip. It was all that was on my mind.

Then came the news. For winter break (December 26-30, 2005), the group would take a full-week stay down at the orphanage.

A full week living in Casa Hogar Sion.

Needless to say, I bit right away and signed up for it. My winter break that year would be very busy -- the first week, I would be in the Caribbeans with my family. We would come home for Christmas, and then I would leave then for Mexico. I started preparing for what would be my first overnight stay.

By the time everything was settled on, the trip would not last for a whole week, due to scheduling difficulties. One group would arrive on Monday, December 26th. My group and I would arrive later, on Tuesday (12/17) night. Both of groups would then leave on Friday (12/30). It wasn't the full week I had expected, but it was still the longer than I had ever stayed before.
This time, we had a pretty full group. It was around 9 if I counted right. It included Eunice (the main leader), two or her brothers, another leader from the high school ministry, and four or five students, including me. Eunice's brothers and I were the only relative newcomers.

Once again, I was on the road. It was nighttime, this time, as I crossed the border to Mexico, and it seemed as if we had crossed into a whole other world. As we approached the orphanage on dirt roads, I wondered why something as insignificant as a man-made line could decide whether people had clean drinking water or not, or divide a world into pieces. I realized that, when I looked up, that despite these differences, we all lived under the same sky with the same stars.

Finally, we had arrived and I stepped into the dark orphanage. Almost everyone was asleep, aside from a few adults and some of the older kids. I breathed in the night air and took in the sights and sounds. To this day, nothing compares to experience of walking around those halls in the dead of night. There is a presence you feel there. Something protective. It is as if, around you, the whole world was falling apart. But where you are, there is just peace and shelter.

Almost immediately, Jasmine (the girl from my first trip) ran up to me and gave me a hug. That moment blew me away. She had actually remembered me? I only saw her for one day, over a month ago. The orphanage received many visitors every weekend (even though it wasn't as much as they had nowadays). And yet...she remembered my face despite all of that.
I knew then that the bonds that you develop with these kids are not so easily broken.

Silently we walked to the room where we would be sleeping and joined up with the rest of our group who had arrived earlier. Also with us was a group of construction workers from Hawaii who had come to help with a deconstruction project. That night I met Israel, a Mexican volunteer at the orphanage, for the first time. We then joined together in something that I could never have expected: Worship. Israel pulled out a guitar, and even the workers from Hawaii joined in as we sung praise songs that I knew from back home. Israel even threw in some Spanish lyrics to the familiar songs.
I can't describe the moment with words. I'll tell you that it was simply beautiful, how everyone was united even though they came from across oceans and with different languages and countries.

That week, by the day, we helped tear down the Boy's Dormitories. Apparently, when it was built, it was on a tilt and was pretty much falling apart anyway. Now, they had received enough funds to build a new one, so they needed help tearing the old one down. The days were filled with grueling work, dragging loads of debris into a truck, eating lunch, and coming back to find that all of the debris we had just loaded up had been replaced with a pile that was even bigger.

Deconstruction and cleaning was a group effort. Everyone in the orphanage helped, from the volunteer cooks, teachers, and staff to even the orphans and kids themselves. The actual people who owned the trucks looked were friendly and were glad to help out as if they were your friendly neighbors.
The kids, who could have been out playing, decided to come and help us, too. It hit me, once again, how I -- who had always gotten everything I wanted, pretty much, without trouble -- was a lazy couch/computer potato who didn't do this much work in a year, not to mention a single day. Even more amazing was that these kids, who were considerably less privileged, were happy to help out, with a smile.

But by far the most powerful moment during that four-day stay for me was on Wednesday night, when we drove down to Ensenada, a city about seventy miles south. We drove down along with all of the adults who volunteered at the orphanage to a house that had a shack in their front yard about the size of a garage. It was a home-built, wooden shack – sort of like a mini-house. We walked in and there were chairs set up. It was a church, and they were meeting that night.

About thirty or so people had shown up with us -- some of them volunteers from the orphanage, and some of them from elsewhere. The simplest of worship teams took the stage -- a guitar and a singer -- and started to lead the room in song.

They were singing in Spanish, but as soon as the first line was sung, I understood every word.

It was because most of the songs I knew already in English. And these songs were some of my favorites. These were the songs that brought me up when I was down. These were the songs that changed my life. And here they were, in Mexico, singing the same songs, worshiping the same God. The universalness of it all caught up to me.

There, in that room with thirty or so people singing praise together, I felt a great light shining forth. I saw a vision of a dark, empty place. Then, a spark -- a candle lights up. The fire spreads and lights up another candle. Many more pop out, and from their flames they spark new ones. Soon, the entire world was lit brilliantly that way.

Even in the darkest places, you can find hope. And, if you believe in it, you can find God.

The service continued as people came up one-by-one walked up to share stories and testimonies. Not a single one who didn't break down into tears by the end of their story, with numerous shouts of "Amen" and "Dios Bendiga" from the crowd. There truly was a presence there, and it was ready to overflow and spill out into the world.
The floodgates were opening.

On Friday, we worked a bit, played with the kids, and, after touching good-byes with the numerous kids I had gotten to know, headed back home.

This time, however, I realized that in a way, I was already home.