Sleep
deprived and immensely fortunate, the Diocese of Dallas Mission trip
finally arrived to her destination, her home for the next ten days.
Personally, the first day was the most difficult and unique, even
though we had not really done any actual mission work. Amid flight
delays and restlessness, our frustrated, grumpy faces suddenly turned
cheerful as we saw the humble hospitality of the people—especially
those at the retreat house. Our first contact with the “Nicos”
was at lunch, at a fried chicken food chain, but that was merely a
taste of what was to come. We were shy; as some workers helped us
with our bags, we remained silent, watching… it still amazes me
that just outside the grounds of the camp, there are magnificent
trees, beautiful flowers, and yes, as you might have heard, monkeys
and other terrors of the night. That was the one caveat: the world
was amazing and sincere and simple, yet it was still foreign to us;
there could be a massive moth or twenty mosquitoes flying by you, you
could be sweating incessantly because of the steep humidity, or come
to face simply a different, yet still incredibly scary dish of food.
Still timid, we could say nothing, as the language barrier was ever
present. We were out of our comfort zones, but this is what we signed
up for.
I
knew it would be difficult, but through my hardships and pains, I
hoped something more, something greater, would come out of it, and it
did. That night (I have been awake for nearly 15 hours straight) we
all came together for “circle time”, a meeting where at the end
of that day we would explain what happened that day and our insights.
That night, we survived on plane, on bus, on van, an earthquake and
we made it. Through the grace of God, the plane did in fact wait for
us and believe it or not, we arrived, only hours away from starting
what we came for: to help. To be honest, that night, we were nowhere
fulfilling what the word “MISSIONARY” would imply; what I know
for sure is that that night our shells broke off and hearts softened
to finally hear that call, that “little voice” inside all of our
hearts, the mission to our name.
