So many people roll their eyes when I say that I've been on a mission trip - they automatically assume it was one of those useless trips that people take to make themselves feel better. The kind of trip where you build a house in the daytime, and then the real construction workers have to rebuild it during the night as so not to make you feel bad. Yeah, not that kind of trip.
This was the kind of the trip that makes you humble. The kind of trip that fills your soul. The kind of trip that shows you just how lucky you are - in many ways. Lucky to be born into a country that has opportunities like we do, and lucky that you have met people as incredible as the kind of people that I met in the Dominican Republic.
My church has an established relationship with another Episcopal church in Azua, República Dominicana. We have people from our church going there a couple time a year, helping out with Vacation Bible School and providing dental care, among other things. The people in Azua feel like a second family to us, and they love having us come to help out. I had never been on this particular trip before, but our leaders and two other members of the group had been on this trip last summer. I didn't know what to expect, and I didn't speak any Spanish, so I was definitely worried about communicating with people in the DR.
Getting off the bus on out first night there, I can honestly say it was a bit of a shock - but in the most beautiful way possible. There were so many hands hugging me and people kissing my cheeks and welcoming me. I had never been hugged by so many perfect strangers before. My qualms were gone instantly, and even though I was literally in the arms of strangers, I felt so at ease and comfortable being embraced over and over again.
As the days went by, I felt more and more at ease working with the kids and leading VBS alongside the teenagers of the church where we were. The women who worked there gave the most incredible hugs, and would greet us each morning with an embrace and a smile. They were so genuine in their love for us, and you could tell that they honestly loved having us there.
As we got to see some of the other parts of the community, one thing that I loved and that stuck with me was how proud they were of their families and their homes. They had nothing compared to our standards, but they were so happy to be alive and to meet new people. So many people in our culture take what they have for granted and don't live an open life filled with the things that really matter - as we started saying on the trip, they don't "live life with the door open" like the people that we met in the DR. In the DR, they literally live their lives with the doors open, and with people coming in and out, and kids running in and out of homes and playing everywhere.
I'm not discounting the fact that a lot of these people live in horrible poverty- often without reliable clean water or even glass in the windows. I'm not saying that they love to be poor or that they don't deserve to live in comfort and safety. What I'm saying is that they have an outlook on life that some people in our culture seem to have lost. They don't take anything, even the smallest things in life, for granted. They appreciate laughter and love and the simple power of a really good hug. They simply know how to love and how to live an open life.
I think that seeing how these people love and live humbled me a bit. It made me realize that you don't have to always see the worst parts of any situation, and it made me want to be able to live my life in a way that I could be as happy as the people that I met this trip. And, not to be cheesy, but going on this trip has opened up my eyes to another world and way of life, and now that I've got the travel bug, I know that my life is sure to be filled with moments like these.
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http://www.6000grove.com/2015_07_01_archive.html
Saint Sephens Episcopal Church
Richmond, VA
http://www.saintstephensrichmond.net/
