If you asked me a year ago what I would be doing this Thanksgiving, I don’t think I would have ever imagined being able to tell this story.
It started as a completely normal day at the Hearts in Action ranch, minus the homesickness that was magnified because it was a holiday back home. I woke up in tears that morning, seriously doubting my ability to make it through the day without breaking down. FYI, I was right. I learned quickly just how painful holidays away from home are going to be.
The breakfast bell rang at 6:30 am and 30 world racers stumbled into the dining hall, most still in their PJs with messy bedhead that indicated just how badly we all wanted an extra 20 minutes of sleep. Mornings start early here, and Thanksgiving was no exception. We mumbled Happy Thanksgiving to each other as we made our way to the sacred spot in the dining hall, the coffee maker. I don’t think any of us have gone a day without drinking it since we’ve been here. It has become our lifeline during a month of early mornings and lots of manual labor.
At 8 am we had our daily squad meeting to split up into our assigned projects for the day. A few of us were assigned to help two of the workers on the ranch, Benjamin and Wilson, with corn all day; the “corn team” as we liked to call ourselves. It’s funny if you try to say it three times fast.
We spent our entire morning pulling corn kernels off the cob (which would eventually become corn tortillas) and commenting about how awesome it was that we were getting to work with corn on Thanksgiving. When I say “pulling corn kernels off the cob”, I meant that very literally. We were sitting on the floor of a dirty, dusty shop around a giant pile of dried corn sifting through the pile to find cobs that still had kernels attached to them. One by one, we would use our bare hands to twist the kernels off the cob, to the point that our thumbs had been rubbed almost raw, to separate the corn kernels so they could eventually be ground up to make tortillas. It was about as close to Thanksgiving as we thought we were going to get for the day.
The bell rang again at 12:30. Lunch time. Right before lunch, we had just finished our 4th pile of corn and simultaneously let out a huge sigh of relief when we looked around to see that Benjamin and Wilson did not have another pile waiting for our poor, raw hands. Right before we left, Benjamin asked us to help him in the corn field after lunch and we immediately agreed thinking that we were going to get to harvest corn on Thanksgiving. I mean, what else screams Thanksgiving other than harvesting corn? In hindsight, I would have LOVED to sit around another pile of corn for the rest of the afternoon, but the Lord had a different plan for Lyndsay and I.
Meet Lyndsay- the most incredible, sweetest, selfless, supportive and forgiving friend I have ever had. Lyndsay, I am forever thankful for you and your genuine heart. This picture only captures a tiny glimpse of the joy that she brings to this world.
After lunch we headed back to the corn fields to find Benjamin and Wilson who didn’t hesitate to tell us just how much the job the four of us were about to do was going to suck, for lack of a better word. Plot twist… we were not harvesting corn for the rest of the workday, but we were collecting all the dead, rotten, maggot-infested corn that had been left in the field during the harvest and deemed inedible for various reasons. No gloves. No tools. Just our bare hands, rotten corn and a lot of maggots.
We moved down each row of corn stalks, picking up corn husks that had not been shucked yet and slowly opening each one in anticipation of the army of insects that was about to be freed from the confinements of the walls of the corn husks. And without fail each time we opened another one, we would release a variety of bugs ranging from tiny maggots that proceeded to crawl all over our bodies to unusually large spiders that would scurry off quickly. The maggots eventually made their way from our hands and arms into our hair, which was very apparent by the itching that started and relentlessly continued until we showered later that night. I could feel these tiny little insects crawling around in my long, blonde hair; the perfect hiding spot for them. It was overwhelmingly disgusting and far from what we had imagined doing on Thanksgiving.
About an hour and a half in, Lyndsay and I were about to reach our breaking point and we knew that something had to change; mainly, our attitudes. We started taking turns naming the things we were thankful for and even included Benjamin and Wilson into our little game to stay positive and lighten the mood.
When we asked Benjamin, a worker in his 50s with seven kids, what he was thankful for, his response almost brought me to tears. His response went something like this, “I am thankful for my wife because she continues to love me no matter how many times I mess up and let her down. No matter what mood I am in or what I do wrong, she is always happy to see me when I come home. She loves me even when finances are not looking good for us and supports me while I work to make money. We have raised 7 children together through difficult times but we are still a family and I am thankful for that”.
Relentless, unconditional love. Reminds me of someone else I know.
Our thankfulness game worked and our attitudes began to slowly change. Praise Jesus. We finished our time in the corn fields with a hair full of maggots and hearts full of joy for the blessings the Lord has poured out on us.
My homesick, hurting heart was starting to heal throughout the day but God had one more big surprise in store. Our squad had planned to make Thanksgiving dinner as special as possible in a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving. Everyone showered and got dressed in our fanciest World Race attire (I even put on makeup for the first time since being on the world race). When the bell rang at 6:30 pm for dinner, we made our way to the dining hall only to be greeted by about 20 Guatemalan men dressed in blazers, lining either side of the entrance of the dining hall, applauding and telling us Happy Thanksgiving as we walked by. They were simply celebrating us and the fact that we were celebrating our Thanksgiving. I am not even sure if they understand the impact they had on each of us in that moment.
What those men didn’t know is that I had spent most of the day in tears due to homesickness. That every single time someone told me Happy Thanksgiving, I would walk away and instantly tear up because of how badly I longed to be with the family and man that I so deeply love. That 30 minutes before dinner, I was laying in bed sobbing into Shara’s lap about how I honestly did not think I was going to be able to pull myself together enough to go to our Thanksgiving dinner as a squad.
One by one, the puzzle pieces of my broken heart were being pieced back together throughout the day, but the entrance to dinner we were greeted with finished the puzzle. God works in some pretty crazy ways sometimes. Even through rotten corn and maggots on Thanksgiving in Guatemala.
