It has taken some time to process
my thoughts and reflections on the unforgettable missionary experience to
Nassau, the Bahamas. It has been a little bit more than a week since I got
back, and it feels like it has been like three weeks. Days are slow now, and
events I look forward to the most are still at least a couple weeks away. In
Billings, Montana I cannot find the same aliveness that I had felt in the
Bahamas. What I did there was special, and I loved every minute from day one to
the last day. The truth is, I was not ready to go home, but all things come to
an end, especially great things come to an end.
I started writing this paper on the
second Monday past the day we arrived from the trip, and I decided I have had
enough time to think about what I want to say. But still, I cannot shorten the
sum of the trip based on my feelings and experiences. People ask me “How was
it?” or say they were jealous, but that was because it is the Bahamas after
all. When I hear those types of questions and comments, I pause for a few
seconds to remember the reason why I came to the Bahamas. Also, I look up and
remember what the Bahamas has given to me that I am changing my life. I say “it
was life-changing…”, and then smile at the person looking at me. I smile for a
reason, every morning, afternoon, and evening I saw a smile from somebody’s
face. That also includes me, I could not believe how many times I laughed and
smiled in just a week. I think about the children at the park, and they always
put on a smile around us. I saw their faces with pure joy that they may never
have felt in their life because of what the “White People” brought to them every
day they came to the Englerston Neighborhood Park. We brought tools, technology
gadgets, sports equipment, food, and water for the kids to have each day spent
with us. Every kid had opportunities to play with us and the other kids, but
none of those things were the important things. Well okay, water was pretty
damn important to stay hydrated all day. The invaluable qualities in such small
moments happened in various times made my day. The happy moments I got share
with such as skipping in the park with a little sweet girl. The six year old
boy that touched my heart the most, Shandinno, loved to get piggy back rides and
try on sunglasses from anyone. Shandinno’s older brother, Junior, at age ten,
showed an essence of potential to be a good person. Meaning, there was that
special quality of being a leader someday to make a difference for this
community. Anybody can do good things in their life to make a difference, but
there isn’t always someone that you see it naturally by looking in their eyes. The amount of energy showing from every kid
playing in the grass or begging for piggy back rides. Even painting or scraping
the wall made a child happy to be along our side. No matter on any place in
this world, a child always wants to be with someone that they can count on
right by their side.
The Englerston kids do not have
enough of the accountability from their parents and families, and I know that
because I saw it happen. Most of them do not have any activity to keep them
busy all day, so their park is the only place they can find. The kids I talked
to, I asked them what school is like. In the responses that I remember, they
appreciated school so much because of what accountability holds with adults to
lead the class. School gave them an opportunity to learn and play elsewhere
than the park or their homes. I cannot imagine living in their home life, if
they even have a home? The drug and alcohol affects the youth at a very early
age, and there is nothing out there to stop it because the adults have the lack
of guidance and responsibility. My hope for that community and all struggling
neighborhoods like this one is to have a good sense of unity and sustainable
infrastructure. The infrastructure of this park is devastating, and so is
everything else. There are no trash cans, broken swing set and tee-totter,
vandalized building, shattered glass bottles, and drugs in the park. The value
of the park that holds has been put away in the trash by the people, and that
has to be restored. A woman from the Bahamas that I had met at the resort after
one of the worship services told us (Me, Sydney, Katie, Cole, and Michaela)
about how much the people from here devalue the land.
One of my aspirations is to become
a landscape architect or some sort of community planner, and that is because I
see potential in all hands. I envision the possibilities of what can be created
or expanded. I believe in all things, there is room for growth. I have a
passion for parks because parks help the community to stay active. If all
communities were active in a same kind of way, the world would be a much better
place to live in. My visions of this park with potential helped to see more
hope in those kids playing in the park. I wish those kids had a park that was
new and better in any kind of way, and I would love to see that to be a reality.
I don’t know how much I impacted
them by myself, but I do care that they will remember there is hope. All eight
of us (Me, Cole, Sydney, Katie, Morie, Michaela, Lacey, and Riely) came
thousands of miles away from home to spend almost a week in their park from
morning to afternoon for a reason. To add something special in our lives, and
the children were the special item that has been blessed into our lives. I hope
at least some of them feel in a similar way, because looking up to another by
one inspiring moment that happened on that day can make a difference for a kid’s
life. Spending my time with the kids and the group at the park has made a huge
impact on me, and I will never feel the same again.
On the first day at the park, I was
nervous because I did not know what to expect. I wondered what this week was
going to have for as unexpected events and things that are expected to happen.
That feeling went away eventually as I started playing with the children and
working on the mission project. I see the Bahamian/Haitian and at-risk children
in a different way than I did before. My heart goes out to them every day
because of how I learned much more about them. It became easier to understand
their life, and now I can relate in my own perspective of what they deal with
everyday. I humbly cannot explain and think of everything that I feel. There
are some painful and messy thoughts out there, but there are a lot of good ones
also. On what I have written on here, is only a fraction of what I have learned
from my perspective. I realized that be grateful for the life you have because
every single moment that you feel wide awake is so precious. The time we get to
live and being wherever we are, take some breaths and think about what you can
do in your life to make a difference. Even the smallest moments can be the most
vivid memories you have.
On this trip, I thought about what
actually matters in life. I want to do things that actually matter for a good
cause. I want to continue to do more missionary work because that is one thing
I feel it does matter. Doing a mission trip has opened my eyes to new
possibilities and sights. I have to do more mission work, and becoming a
missionary is another aspiration that I have added to my list. Having those
connections with the children in Nassau do mean a lot, and growing more
connections is important for all of us, especially a community.
