Birthday wishes (Bare with me this one is kind of long And a little late)
I turned 21 on the 15 of February and I had so many emotions running through me. I’ve struggled this past week with finding my self again. I felt distant and just at war with my flesh. Yesterday I finally started to just be free and happy. I wanted to go into my birthday with joy and true positivity. And thanks to my entire team I felt like I could do just that. I got woken up to my leader and two of my teammates at 12 am wishing me a Happy Birthday. Then getting up for breakfast, I could hear all of them singing (a little off key might I add;)) happy birthday as I walked to the kitchen table. They had cards and presents and my heart was filled with pure joy as they gather around watching and taking pictures. I could have never imagined that these people who I had just met would do something so nice and genuine for me.
BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER. We go to our morning ministry and it’s my favorite one out of the week. This is the third time we’ve been so by now the kids know my name and always look forward to seeing me again. The kids run up to me grabbing my hands and arms pulling me in every direction. A smile can’t help but form on my face. They pull me into their classroom, begging to dance, sing, take pictures and just hang out. Word gets around that it’s my birthday and they go pretty hard for celebrations. So it’s no surprise that they wouldn’t stop singing happy birthday. My teammates that went to the feeding with me gathered all of the kids in the middle of the school and they all sang happy birthday to me. Tears just fell from my eyes. The emotion of happiness and love just filled the atmosphere. These kids who have little to nothing, are here bursting with joy over my birthday. I have never felt more loved than I did in that moment. I couldn’t help but just cry at the hands of the little ones who wanted to stand by me. Their happiness and joy completely washed out any doubt and sadness that I could ever feel. Their love shines bright because God’s love shines brighter for them. As I walked around, child after child walked up to me saying happy birthday and showered me in hugs. A genuine smile never left my face. If it was allowed I wouldn’t have left their side. Not because they were giving attention to me, but because their hearts were radiating pure affection and I just wanted to soak up every once of it. After leaving the feeding I was convinced it couldn’t get any better.
We get home and all get ready to go out to eat to finish celebrating my day. We had Mexican food and after eating rice and chicken every day, I couldn’t tell you how stinking happy I was to have a quesadilla. High key the best present I got that night. We get ready to leave and find our way back to our house. Me and two of my other roommates (Darian and Genesis) go together and end up getting lost. No joke, we are at least a 30 min drive in the opposite direction. And getting someone to take you that far for cheap is almost impossible. By the grace of God this man offers to take us allllll the way back. We start talking and getting to know this man. He has a wife and a son he is taking care of. He works two jobs, sun up to sun down. To give a little context of the situation we take a trike for transportation. A trike is a motorcycle with a cart welded to the side of it. Most of them ask for 10-15 pesos. So we are driving for at least 45 min on this trike. We talk about how we are here on a mission trip to spread the love of Jesus. We asked if he knew God and he said yes. Just being able to talk to him and get to know his likes and hobbies literally made our night. He kept saying that he had 3 angels in his cart and how he couldn’t wait to tell his coworkers. Tears welled up in my eyes just listening to this man talk. You could tell by the way he talked that he was a man of God. When we get off the trike we asked how much and he said 80 pesos. For some reason God was telling me to bless this man. To give him whatever I had and don’t question it. I handed him a 1000 pesos and so did Darian. He just looked at us very confused. We didn’t do it to brag about it or have people say “good job”. I was blessed on my birthday by having people who care and love for me, and the biggest blessing I could do was to give. I’ve been asking God to give me opportunities to give back and show his love and as always God never fails to do just that.
It does hurt that I wasn’t at home and with my family for my birthday. But in reality I was home. Because even though I’ve only met my team three weeks ago and only been to that feeding 3 times I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else than where God has called me to be. They are my forever family.
