I’ve been on mission trips before.
Every time I go to Haiti I get to see my favorite kids from the orphanage every day, and I get to spend time with the best families in the world before I go to bed each night.
I spend a week there, pour myself out, and then have to say goodbye to them.
The first time I went to Haiti I knew I would be back. I knew it wasn’t going to be just a one-time thing for me.
So, when I had to say goodbye to them I was sad, of course, but it was more like a “see you later.”
When we said goodbye to each other we knew we would see each other again even if it seemed like it was a lifetime away from that moment.
But goodbyes on The World Race are so different.
So far, my team has worked with two of the most incredible families I have ever known.
In January, in Quito, we were blessed to work with the Villavicencio family. We spent time with Efren and his wife, Moni, every day, and on the weekends and our days off their two daughters were included. It seemed as though Efren’s family of four had grown into a family of 12.
I immediately hit it off with Efren’s daughter, Mishelle, and my team even joked about how I opened up to her quicker than I had with them.
At the end of the month, we all stood in a circle in the front yard at Casa Blanca and had to say our tearful goodbyes. It was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life.
I had fallen in love with these people and now I had to say goodbye to them, unsure if I would ever see them again.
And I had to do it again this month.
My team worked with another amazing family, and actually got to live with them. So, every morning when we woke up to go have our coffee and breakfast, we would see Rudolfo, his wife, Maretza, his daughters Melody and Karem, his son Eli, and his 15 month old granddaughter, Camila.
Again, it felt like their family had grown by 7. I loved getting to know them and spending time with them every day.
So the last night we spent in Chincha happened to be a Sunday night, so we were able to spend time with the whole church. After the service, we played games and fellowshipped with the church members we had grown to know the previous three weeks.
When it was time to say goodbye, we kissed everyone’s cheeks. Daniel, a gentleman who had ventured out with our team into the community a couple of times, hugged me and said goodbye. And then through a little bit of charades and the very little Spanish I knew, I figured out that he said to me, “I’ll see you again in Heaven.”
Sometimes the thought of that blows my mind.
And I really had never even thought about that before.
Throughout my life I’m going to meet and fall in love with people, and then I’m going to have to say goodbye to them.
I can now rest in the fact that if I don’t ever see them again in this lifetime, I may see them in Heaven.
I also met an 18 year old Evangelistic Rapper named Christian while in Chincha, and we were able to sit down and have dinner with him in Lima the night before we left Peru.
I will never forget the last words he said to us before we parted ways.
“Remember, we are not called to convert people. We are called to plant a seed that Jesus will grow.”
So even if I meet people I’m not sure know Jesus as their Savior, our friendship plants a seed, and my job is done.
I know Jesus will grow it.
The Villavicancio family
The Salazar Family
Christian & I
