So I’m writing this in the airport at gate 123 in Miami, waiting to board the plane home to Canada..
This is the first official time in 11 months i’ve been alone, the race finally finished. I have a lot of strange feelings running back and forth through my brain. Flash backs of, 11 month worth, of golden memories of people, places and God. I’m sad, excited and expecting God to do great things in my life, whatever that looks like.
I’m flashing back to one moment in particular, in Guatemala…
My team and I after moving some dirt for a playground at the dump
We worked with a ministry called “Casa Verde”. One of my favourite things we did with this ministry was visiting the city dump. There is a whole city built out of sticks, rocks and sheet metal surrounding a huge mountain of trash. The population of this dump city is probably 2000 people.
My team and I had the great pleasure of spending time with the beautiful men, women and children who live in the dump. Casa Verde had taught the children at the dump a dance choreography to “yo tengo el ojo del tiger” (I’ve got the eye of the tiger) by Katy Perry. They were to perform this dance at a christian leadership conference at a resort outside of town. A week before the conference we took them all to the resort to record them dancing and to have a fun day swimming and being carefree.
Some of the kids at the resort
I’ll never forget the day we arrived at the dump with an open-top chicken bus to pick up the children. Their little bodies shook with anticipation and excitement. We crammed 27 children and 10 of us into the back of the bus and immediately the happiness of the children contagiously spread through everyone. All I could do was watch in amazement at these precious children, jumping, screaming and loving life.
Now these aren’t normal children…these children have had extremely hard lives..
They’ve lived in a dump city their whole lives
Starvation is a daily reality to them
They play with garbage all day long instead of toys.
One boy at the dump would grab my teammates hand and say “come play in the garbage with me!”
They have sores on their bodies that they let bugs and flies crawl in and out of and don’t bother to shake off.
Some of them don’t have parents and wander aimlessly around the dump.
They’ve been beaten, swore at and told they’ll never amount to anything.
There was a little boy at the dump that would hang on to every missionary he saw, and when he hugged you, you could feel his desperation for love.
These kids are beat up by life every single day.
My two sons(for the day) and I at the resort
In spite of all they go through they are still so happy, they live in the moment and they bare their souls in pure joy.
I thought to myself, how can I be sad? how can I be worried? how can I be unsatisfied?
My goodness, these kids know how to live with their “child like faith” they are perservering with the joy of the Lord in their hearts and drawing from His strength!
Amazing, I definitely learnt a lot from them.
Colocho doing some break-dancing for the kids
One of my favourite moments from the race is this one, I wouldn’t give it up for the world.
