Nunca serás el mismo/You will never be the same
- gbthompson7
- Jun 24, 2019
- 5 min read
Painted on the wall just above the dining hall doors is this saying "Nunca serás el mismo/You will never be the same." It is a reminder to the many staff and visitors that pass through those doors that serving in a place such as this changes you from the inside out. And it couldn't be more true.
This is our last week here.
Our last week....
My emotions are running so close to the surface even as I write this. How can our time down here be coming to an end so soon? It's going to be so hard to say goodbye. These kids here...they are so precious and dear to our hearts now. How can we leave them?
It's interesting because if you had spoken with us 4 months ago we would have told you we were ready to go home to Trout Lake. That the ministry here was special, but we felt somewhat disconnected and missed our friends and family back home. But in the past 4 months God has worked in our lives and in our hearts and given us the connection we were missing. That connection started with 3 girls, and then expanded almost exponentially.
Back in April we began to officially sponsor a set of 3 sisters here. We vaguely knew who they were, but we couldn't tell you a whole lot about them at the time, other than that they had arrived the previous summer and were still in need of additional sponsors. The oldest sister seemed nice enough, but wasn't overly talkative to strangers, whereas the two younger sisters had no problem talking, but always seemed to do so in some of the fastest Spanish I had ever heard! We couldn't understand more than a handful of words that flowed out of their mouths! Still, we decided to take the plunge and sponsor them. We figured that by choosing to sponsor kids while we were still here, we had more of an opportunity to get to know them (and let them get to know us) before we returned to Washington. We had no idea at the time that this was what we were missing out on during our first 6 months here.
I had the school principal inform the girls that our family had chosen to sponsor them. Due to my limited Spanish, I wanted to make sure the girls understood what we were doing and that we wanted to do some special things with them while we were here. When the principal told the girls we were going to be sponsoring them, Andrea, the oldest sister, became noticeably glossy eyed and fought not to cry. She immediately hugged me and started telling me "thank you" repeatedly in English! The younger sisters were also excited to have a family sponsoring them. From that day on, Andrea never sees me and lets me go by without giving me a hug. She loves to practice the English she has been learning and is constantly repeating what we say in English so she can practice her pronunciation (even if she doesn't know exactly what the words mean). She finds excuses to come over to our house and enjoys hanging around with us. We have also spent a significant amount of time with her sisters, Laura (age 9) and Rosa (age 8). For Laura and Rosa, this past year was their first time EVER in school. Gabe and I wanted to help support them as they try to catch up to their peers, so each week we spend one-on-one time with them to do things like read and memorize math facts. Every Tuesday either Gabe or I would pick up some books from the school library and read or work on addition/subtraction problems with Rosa. Wednesdays were Laura's turn. Both girls enjoyed this time with us, even though I am sure they were tired of school. They still talk super fast and it is sometimes hard to understand what they are trying to convey, but they never seem to get frustrated with us when we don't understand them right away and are so patient as we try to figure out their words.
Due to officially sponsoring these 3 girls, we began going over to the casas more often. This opened the door to getting to know many of the other girls in each casa. Soon we were doing things with not just our 3 sponsored girls, but with their entire casas! Pizza parties, movies in our living room, roasting marshmallows! It became normal to take an additional 4-5 kids with us when we would go to the beach or out for ice cream. Our weekends are usually crazy with multiple kids coming over throughout the days, but we love it!
THIS is what we were missing. THIS is the ministry we longed for. Yes, Gabe teaching over at the school is great and very helpful, but living life outside of school with these kids is what we enjoy the most. Each child that we have gotten to know has touched our hearts and given us purpose. It is going to break my heart when we leave them......
Don't get me wrong. We are excited to go back home and see friends and family again. I am looking forward to modern conveniences such as having a clothes dryer, bread machine, ice cream maker, etc. I am looking forward to being near a public library again and having a Walmart nearby. I can't wait to spend more time with family, especially siblings and nephews/nieces that Gabe and I haven't seen during this whole time. It will be wonderful to find normal ingredients to cook some of our favorite meals. I am excited to get back to hiking some of the beautiful trails in the Columbia Gorge area. There is a lot to look forward to, I know. But you can't experience ministry like this and not be changed. It changes your whole world view. It shapes your heart in ways you can't fully understand or explain. I hope some of you get to experience this with us one day. Because I know we will be coming back. We don't know when or for how long, but this place.....these children.....have our hearts and we won't be able to stay away forever.
So I am going to focus on enjoying this week. I will hug each kid extra hard. Laugh and smile with them. Tease them. Pray with them. And when we drive away I will be crying big, fat tears. But I will have no regrets. Thank you Lord for our time here. Bring us back soon!
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