So, I spent the last ten days in Honduras, on a mission trip organized by the Diocese of Dallas and three of the major Catholic high schools. Instead of writing an extraordinarily long blog post, which nobody would ever finish reading, I decided to break this experience up, so that the "high" I'm on now will last for the whole summer. To start, I will tell you about the iconic moment of the trip (for me).
Keep in mind that I'm not usually this sentimental. But this trip really touched me in a way I have never been touched before.
On June 18, 2010, a twelve or thirteen year old boy changed my life. Or, at least, the next few weeks will show how successful he was. I don't know what his name is. I don't know who his parents are. I don't know anything about him. But, as we (the missionary group) were playing soccer with the Honduran kids in the trashy street right outside the church we were helping to build and improve, this boy started poking me. It was a favorite pastime of the Honduran kids. They would come up behind us and start poking. (I have bruises from that. Those little kids were ridiculously strong. They would mess with the barbed wire and come away with nary a scratch.) Then, suddenly, he stopped. He started talking to me. Well, I take French, so I had no idea what he was saying. So I had trusty Vanessa, our unofficial translator, mediate between this boy and me. He was asking where I was from. Of course, I said Dallas, Texas, and showed him my ID bracelet, where it was written out. He tried pronouncing it several times (Dollah Tejas!) and then he asked me if he could come back with me to Texas. Not as a joke. Not trying to get my guard down so he could tickle me again. But with a completely serious face.
What was I supposed to say?! I shrugged my shoulders, said no, and Vanessa kind of explained to him why he couldn't come. But that occurrence stuck with me. I used it during our reflection circle time, I wrote about it in my essay for the bishop, I told my parents. Those kids, in fact, all of the Honduran people, viewed us as guardian angels. We came from a land of electronics, clean water, fancy clothes, unpopped soccer balls, and red 'juice' (gatorade). I mean, we did plenty of manual labor. But we could have volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and done the same exact things. The difference was the people and what we learned from them. That kid restored all the confidence in myself that I had lost over the course of junior year. He was willing to come with me, a complete stranger, to a different country, for reasons which should be pretty obvious. I learned so much on a simple ten day trip, that I was almost appalled when I got home and saw how many break-ups, hook-ups, movie going, complaining about life, etc. had been going on while I was away. I saw how superficial it all is, and how I had broken free of the superficiality for a while. I'm afraid of going back to the person I was before the trip, but I can feel it creeping up already.
So, I'm going to go pray a rosary. I'm going to finish my geography. I'm going to watch a movie, read a book, listen to music. But, all the while, that little kid will haunt me until I finally do more to help him. God handed me the opportunity this first time. Now, I will go pray. I will do my geography, watch a movie, read a book, listen to my music (which I missed so much!). But that little boy will haunt me until I do more to help him and my brothers and sisters around the world. God has already handed me an opportunity to do something. Now it's my turn to become an independent individual and do even more.
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