During our time in Frutillar, one of our ministry sites was helping out at Green Colegio, a school that serves 1st through 8th grade. I helped out with the 4th graders.
It took time to get to know the 28 students in my class and to be honest, I didn’t even know all of their names before I left.
Other teammates knew their students names, worked long hours making gifts for them, writing their students notes, and bought them gift bags.
As our final days started coming to a close, I felt bad as I had nothing for my students, and that’s when the devil started creeping in.
“Clearly you don’t love your students to do anything for them.”
“They won’t even remember you when you’re gone.”
“Look at your other teammates. They have a connection with their students. Why don’t you?”
“You didn’t do enough.”
As the final day came, my team and I went in to school during first break to play with them one last time before we left Frutillar that evening.
Before today, I thought “they won’t even remember me after I leave,” but wow was I wrong.
When I walked in to the school, I saw a couple of my 4th graders and the smiled real big as they ran up to me and gave me a huge hug. Soon I had a small group of my students huddled around me asking me if I wanted to play. I said sure but the language barriers made it hard to decipher what game they wanted to play. Then they asked for my phone, and boy do they love the pictures, especially the slo-mo videos. Unfortunately my phone had been acting pretty wonky for the past day and wouldn’t play or save anything I was taking so that was a failed attempt to.
In the end, it just turned into a hug fest, with not just myself but other members of my team as well. We were all standing in the courtyard surrounded by mobs of children giving hugs.
After the break ended , I went to my class one last time for a class photo. Students were hurriedly writing and drawing goodbye notes and “We love you, Miss Alicia” notes.
We took a class photo and several of them still wouldn’t stop with the hugs. After several attempts, to leave, the final attempt ended up with me shuffling out of class with half of the students clinging to my waist. You could imagine the struggle it took to get through the doorway. They shuffled with me to the front of the school. It wasn’t until I told them to go back to class repeatedly that they finally started to go. They didn’t want to go but I told them that I would stay here at the end of the hallway and wave until they reached their classroom.
It was an incredible hour.
After reminiscing the morning I had just had, I realized that the love I thought I didn’t deserve was given to me tenfold even though I had nothing for them.
This has to sound like a familiar story to many, i’m sure.
The love that God has for us is nothing short of perfect and gracious.
Often we feel like we are not good enough to receive something so perfect as His love. That there is no amount of works we could do, that we will always fall short, and there is some truth to this.
We will always fall short every single day because we are sinners, but thats the nature of being human.
However, God has created you to be exactly the way you are, with every flaw, blemish, bad day, and imperfection.
No amount of works will make Him love you more than He already does. God doesn’t ask for works, He asks for faith in Him.
You are good enough. You are worthy. You are loved.
Jesus was a 4th grader that day. The last place I expected to see Him was exactly where I needed Him.
*Fundraising Update: I only have $1,689 left to raise before the Sept 30th deadline of $13,000! God has been so good through this process and so present on this race!
*Location Update: My team and I are currently in San Pedro De Atacama in the Atacama Desert in Chile for Squad Debrief. Tonight we beginning our travels to Cusco, Peru. We will be there for 11 days before arriving in Lima on the 19th.
