Continuing the Journey
I have come a long way since last December, when, sitting on a dilapidated red coach playing FIFA with my friends at the end of finals, I received my email telling me I was going to the Finca. Sometimes when I'm trying to procrastinate on my work, I stop and think about these faces. These are the faces of the kids I was called to love this summer. My summer still isn't over––I carry it with me all the time in these faces, and I try to allow these memories to transform me. Part of the reason why I love development as community is because it makes development a personal project for all of us, including us here in America. I hope that although I am currently removed from my kids at the Finca, I can advance the cause of development with my everyday actions with the people I am in communion with here in the United States. Through these simple acts of love, I hope that my kids show through me and I fulfill my part in this project called development (although at this point "development" might have taken on a meaning for me beyond the actual word).
I would like to share a prayer by Thomas Merton here. It has been my guide on my journey this summer, and I still turn to it now. Thanks for following me on this journey, and God bless. MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. |