Day 21

Today was a day full of emotions.  It was field trip day, so we loaded up 8 buses, yes 8, and headed off to different fun places to play with the kids.  My group went to a new place called Aqua Planet.  It was like a glorified public pool with a few water slides, but not quite as big as a water park.  We were with Imperio de Amor (IdA) kids today.  There were more group members than kids though, so the 3 interns who went were left with nothing to do.  So we decided to be each other’s kids and enjoyed the water slides and giant pool.  We may or may not have played in the kiddie pool as well….

I am now officially one of the people who can be called on when needing help communicating with a child!  Most of this group spoke little to no Spanish, so I was able to help out several different times when the kids were desperately trying to communicate to their Americans what it was that they wanted.  I love working with these precious little ones every day!

It was a bittersweet night with some of the groups, I’ve grown pretty attached to the North Carolina one that’s here this week.  Along with that, it was intern small group night, so emotions ran high during that.  I’ve also realized that just because we are on a safe campus with people who have a greater purpose in common, doesn’t mean that that is why everyone is here on the groups.  It breaks my heart when I see people here for the wrong reasons, or people who do something to detract from what we are trying to do in the hearts of these kids.  We have enough broken pieces to put back together, the last thing I want to see is people compromising how far we’ve come in the kid’s lives. 

The last two days have been pretty rough when it comes to homesickness.  I love it here, but there are still things that I miss about home.  There’s only one week of groups left, and it’s another big one.  I can’t seem to get enough of being here, there are so many special moments in a day.  I’m going to truly miss it when it’s time to go home, but I also know that there’s a mission field waiting for me there too.