For as long as I can remember, Christmas has always been the absolute best time of year. Many will argue with me, but the Christmas season in my book begins on November 1st, and lasts until New Years. Especially as I’ve gotten older, Christmas has never been about the gifts, commercialism, stress, or busyness. It’s the time of year family gets together just because. It’s the time of year where all the chaos, craziness, and heartbreak in the world doesn’t exist, even if only for a moment. Christmas is decorating the house with my mom and sister. It’s watching every single new Hallmark movie every weekend in November and December with my mom and still crying even though we know the ending before the movie even begins. It’s peppermint hot chocolate, cold weather, sweaters, boots, fuzzy socks, and my bomb Christmas playlist on repeat. (Linked here, you’re welcome.) It’s baking sugar cookies and M&M rice krispy treats with my aunt, sister, and cousin while singing every word to the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas album. It’s Christmas lights and laughter and new memories with friends and family.
Going into the Race, I knew these months were going to be particularly hard for me to be away from home. I thought I would just have to grin and bear this time of year and hold onto knowing Thanksgiving/Christmas 2019 will be that much more special. But what I didn’t expect, and I now feel ridiculous for missing, is that the Lord would change my heart and give me a new kind of Christmas. So far, Christmas on the World Race looks so much different, but is truly still the same amount of joy, love, laughter, and new memories.
Our ministry this month in Valle de Angeles, Honduras, has been serving at Hogar de Angeles, (Home of the Angels) a home for adults with special needs. Each of our six teams that make up our squad have our own “homes” with ten-twelve residents that we spend each day with. We have dance parties, tell stories, play games, sing songs, play outside, and sometimes help the “tias” (tia is Spanish for aunt, a term of respect for the caretakers/nurses) with laundry or cleaning around the homes. Most everyday looks different, and with the language barrier, sometimes we don’t know what our days will look like until we arrive; in which case a short caminar al parque (a walk to the park) turns into a three-hour stroll around the city.
The Lord gave me the word love at the beginning of the month to describe our time here, and with our ministry I have found love in new, unexpected, and beautiful ways everyday. Christmas is about celebrating the birth and love of our Savior. In my life and Christmas traditions at home, that looks like experiencing the joy of the season with my family and loved ones. But, if I’m being honest, I’ve realized that Christmas means so much to me that it’s become a little selfish. Christmas has become about filling my own cup, when the heart of Jesus is just the opposite.
My very favorite days of ministry so far have been the days we spent making Christmas ornaments and decorating our home with our ten residents who have become very dear friends my teammates and I will most certainly remember for the rest of our lives: Ivon, Ines, Juan, Sammy, Franklin, Santos, Moises, Jose, Antonio, and Samuel. I loved these days partly because they felt a little like Christmas at home, but even more so because through the seemingly simple acts of singing and dancing to our favorite Christmas songs, and painting pinecones to hang on the tree, my teammates and I were able to physically see the impact a little love can make:
Ines, our eldest friend in his 50’s, who for probably our first two weeks of ministry, would spend the entire day asleep, was not only awake and coloring ornaments, but even helping decorate the tree and dancing with us all around the home.
Santos, who has schizophrenia and typically spends his days hiding under a blanket, and never leaving his bed, as we were told, not only came out for the first time just to join the fun, but even colored a few ornaments himself, with the biggest smile on his face as he laughed at us silly Americans mispronouncing simple Spanish words.
Franklin, a local celebrity around Hogar de Angeles, who is 25 years old and has spent his entire life in a wheelchair with very limited range of motion in only his neck and head, laughing and shrieking with more joy than I’d ever seen as my teammate, Brittany, held a paintbrush in his hand and helped him paint an ornament. Franklin, who spends his life as a spectator, was able to be a part of the action for what may have been the first time and his smile and laughter screamed his delight.
Sammy, our friend who is also confined to a wheelchair, and for most of our time at ministry, only spoke or made noise in pain, happily coloring and testing my high school Spanish memory as he requested different crayons in his quiet voice. Sammy, who now greets us every morning with a bright and cheery “buenas dias!” (good morning!), and who even now calls my teammate, Aundraya “tia”.
Month two on the World Race has been difficult, to say the least. But I’ve found the love of the Father, the heart of Jesus, every day, every moment both in our ministry at Hogar de Angeles and in our ministry host’s home with my entire squad of 36 under one roof. Though my introverted self has been overwhelmed on more than one occasion with the sheer number and close proximity of so many other humans at every hour of the day, my heart can’t help but be overwhelmingly thankful for these same humans who have become my family in just two short months.
There isn’t an aspect of the World Race I would ever call “easy.” But thank you Jesus, that it’s so much more than the hard things. It’s love. It’s joy. It’s adventure. It’s freedom. It’s seeing and feeling the Lord move in and around me everyday. It’s people, places, and faces, I only ever dreamed of.
In this Christmas season where I have felt the absence of my family and friends at home more than I ever could have imagined, I am still drowning in all these new beautiful pictures of love. And it’s still only December first.
On Thursday, my squad and I are off to El Salvador and will officially begin month three! I cannot believe we are already approaching our last country in Central America. Please be praying for my squad and I as most of us experience our first Christmas seasons away from home! If you’ve been following my journey here on the Race, I also still have about $3,500 left to raise until I am fully funded. Please join me in prayer for provision and peace in the next two months as my deadline quickly approaches.
On repeat this month:
Lady Gaga- Always Remember Us This Way
Jonathan David Helser, Melissa Helser- You Came (Lazarus)
Pink- A Million Dreams (From The Greatest Showman Reimagined)
Florence + The Machine- Third Eye
Josh Garrels- Benediction
Darlene Love- Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
