A Whole New World

“A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view”

These lyrics from a Disney song basically sum up my spring break.  I traveled to another country for the first time and it changed the way I see life.  Well, technically the second time, but that doesn’t count because I was a baby and don’t remember anything.

Three seniors, two moms, and another friend traveled with me down to Mexico.  We visited an orphanage that’s about an hour south of the border.  It was a short term mission trip, so we didn’t make any major additions to the orphanage, but we got to work hard and learn more about ourselves and each other, and live for a few days in a whole new world.

From left to right: Mrs. J, Turner Joy, Kendall, Lemuel, yours truly, Ryan, and Mrs. L.  The orphanage dress code requires the girls to wear long skirts.  Also the rocky, dirty terrain requires everyone to wear tennis shoes.  Personally, I kind of enjoyed the Norman Rockwell-esque effect, but I don’t think anyone else appreciated it.

My already paint-splattered converse, my homeschooler skirt, my sweatshirt/footstool, and my licorice-that’s-not-really-licorice.  I think licorice might be my favorite travel/movie candy.  

Our job was to paint and prime a building. It was a very big building, with lots and lots of windows that needed to be covered with plastic and taped over.  And then covered and taped over again because the plastic was defective and didn’t stick.  And then covered and taped over again because the wind blew off the covers in the night.  And then covered and taped all over because the same thing happened again.  Our senior group is very good at doing things lots of times, over and over and over.  Especially digging holes, but that’s an entirely different story. 

This is the building. 40x60 feet.  And those staircases (there’s one on the other side, too) were quite a challenge to paint.  So many cracks and corner and surfaces to cover.  You can see some of our handiwork on the windows already.

Ryan had a fascinated audience of children gathering around him as they got out of school.  We girls preferred to not work nearby him because of an unfortunate tendency to drip paint from the long roller into our hair. ;)

Turner and I enjoyed telling many amusing stories, some made up and some real, whilst we labored away on the stairs.  

Lemuel and Ryan, our greatest tormentor and our beastly baby boy.  Of course we tormented Lemuel right back, with much encouragement and enjoyment from Mrs. J, his mom.  Ryan’s nickname comes from his status as the youngest in the senior group, but he’s only the second shortest.  Much to his pride and my chagrin. >_>  On the way home from Mexico, Ryan put a gigantic (dead) potato bug on my shoulder and Kendall got me to turn around and see it.  I screamed and jumped higher than when I watched Blink.  It was awful and disgusting and traumatizing.  But I survived.

Kendall, Turner, and I.  Delightfully daubed with paint, we make an enviably fashionable statement.  We three are quite a trio, and boy do we enjoy it.  Turner: “This picture makes me look like a boy!” Me: “A very lucky one.”

Ta-da! Four days, many sore backs and untold gallons of paint and primer later, we’re done.  As a non-member of the senior group, Lemuel didn’t make it into the picture.

You know, last year the senior group came and helped build the foundation for this building.  Other work groups came and helped put it up.  We painted it.  Maybe in a few years, other senior groups will be helping teach school or lead worship here.  I think that’s pretty cool.  It’s a tangible picture of life.  Others have laid the foundation; our job may be to protect and defend from the elements, and later more will come and contribute their blood, sweat, and tears to the great purpose.  We felt like our contribution didn’t amount to much, especially because the pastor who runs the orphanage finished all the work by spraying the building instead of having us paint it by hand, but I refuse to be pessimistic.  Even if we didn’t do much for the building, the trip was definitely worth it.

Here are some more highlights from the trip: 

This bus is fantastic.  It was donated to the orphanage by someone with an obviously great sense of humor.  Here you can see Turner, Lemmy, and Limey, with an appropriate headline.

This is Mrs. L. and I in our room.  We shared a dorm with up to ten little girls from the orphanage.  Every morning, we woke up to them chattering gaily away in Spanish, making the same facial expressions, expressing the same annoyances, helping each other, and generally being just like any other group of little girls.  

With some very silly friends.  I don’t remember the name of the girl next to me, but Stephania, also known as Pocahontas because of her long hair is to the left of Kendall, and between her and Turner is a very special little friend, Angelica.  She was the most outgoing of all the little girls, and was soon up to her own private brand of shenanigans.  If you weren’t careful, she’d sneak up behind you and tickle you!  Or take your camera, figure out how to use it, and be off snapping and showing off pictures before you had time to wonder if it was a good idea.

Here we look like the properly adorable angels that we all are. ahem.

This little guy hung above the bed that I slept in.  I <3 anything Winnie the Pooh!

I brought a lot of markers with me, and some of the little girls had coloring books, so here we are piled on my bed coloring in pictures of Miss Piggie and Strawberry Shortcake.  While we worked, we pointed out the names of the colors in Spanish (“Rosa” “Morado” “Verde”) and the girls counted to ten in English for us: “onetwothreeforfivesixseveneightnineten!”  I counted to ten in Spanish, much to Angelica’s amusement.  These little people are so amazing.  They live in an orphanage where they have to share a room with more than a dozen other people, they share a small bathroom with two stalls and three showers, they keep all their toothbrushes in the same cup, all their clothes in the same closet, and all their shoes jumbled together in the same cupboard.  More than that, they have all been abandoned in some way or another.  That sounds unpleasant to those of us used to first world luxuries, but these little girls seem like the happiest people on earth.  Sometimes you see one that looks quiet and sad, and I wish that I could talk to her and find out what has darkened her smile, but on the whole you couldn’t find a more joyful group of people working and laughing and living together.  That was inspiring to me.  People are so amazing.

This is Christine and her charming preschool.   She used to go to the J’s church, but she felt a very strong calling to go to Mexico and teach preschool.  Now she lives at the orphanage and teaches English preschool in a small trailer every morning from nine to twelve.  We visited her tiny little classroom a couple times, and every time we stepped inside I felt like a giant invading a sacred Babyland of sorts.  Everything in there is little, and the four young students would stare up at us shyly with big eyes and refuse to say anything.  One of them did like to hum to herself as she did her schoolwork, though (“Circle all the ‘L’s,” Christine would say, “Now color the circles in purple”).  I love that she’s found her calling, and it’s so perfect for her.  She’s not just sitting around in California enjoying being grown up.  She’s down in a whole new world, making a difference, because that’s where God wants her to be.

We were hosted by Pastor Walker, who runs the orphanage, and his family.  We’re waiting here in their living room for dinner.  Mrs. Walker served us the most delicious meals, and waited on us like we were honored guests rather than kids who came to work.  Lemuel is holding their dog, Milo.

Okay, guys, I have a new all-time favorite food.  It’s called Ojos de Pancha, if my memory serves me, and you can see it here on this plate of goodies.  The Walker’s youngest son runs a bakery business and makes all kinds of treats, but we got to eat these for free at their table for almost every meal.  Mrs. J. and I could not get enough of the Ojos de Pancha.  It’s the one you see on the left side, cut in half.  Think of a very sweet muffin, almost like a very very good donut, that’s ringed around with puff pastry that has been generously sprinkled with sugar.  Another half of one is perched on top of the pile, but I’m pretty sure that I ate that one very soon after taking this picture.  Seriously, those things are really, really delicious.  Sadly, we were often fed so very well from the preceding meal that we barely had room to taste these sweet breads, but we enjoyed them immensely nonetheless.

After dinner every night, we gathered in the nursery trailer where our boys slept to study 1 Timothy 4:12.  “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.” Each night we chose a different word or two to focus on and read Scripture together about.  Ryan was a very devoted competitor in the “Please turn to” Bible race.

I suppose this picture requires some explanation.  This appears to be a sort of ‘baby-cupboard’ where you can keep babies.  Above my head you can see a side railing that can be slid down and prevent anyone from tumbling out.  It was not exclusive to babies, however, because all of us found that we could fit quite comfortably.  I especially enjoyed curling up in there to watch the proceedings unfolding below.  And what proceedings they were.  When we finished the Bible study, we would play a game or two such as Quelf or mafia.  If you’ve never played Quelf, all you need to know is that it is the best game in the world...for making yourself look ridiculous.  Like, try to imagine me acting out “A one-eyed mime trapped in an invisible box with four rabid ferrets”.  Yep.  Good times.  Mafia is more sinister.  It involved selected citizens of an imaginary town choosing who to kill off, and if you get accused of belonging to the mafia and don’t defend yourself well, then you can be executed and sent out of the game.  Fortunately, someone is also selected to be the Doctor and they can save people’s lives.  Unfortunately, Ryan felt the need to exterminate me, the Doctor, and I was executed early on in the game.  He seemed deaf to my eloquent arguments in my own defense, despite my years of training in persuasion and argumentation, and my long history of saving people’s lives.  Oh well.  I retreated to my little baby cupboard for the rest of the game and watched everyone else die off since they no longer had me, the Doctor.

When the building was painted, we drove into town and visited a marketplace.  This is a fairly accurate representation of what the entire thing looked like, although it had well over a hundred booths and this is only two.  Prices aren’t set there, so I had to haggle for the first time in order to make my souvenir money stretch for myself and five siblings.  The sellers are very good at emotion manipulation.  One of them told me that he definitely remembered me, and asked me to step inside his booth and see what I’d like.  He must have an incredible memory, because the last time I was in Mexico I wasn’t even two years old.  Others look hurt or even sad when you offer a lower price.  You just have to stay strong!  Turner was especially good at this.  See all the big woven sweatshirts hanging up?  Most of us chose one.  Mine is blue and grey and black and white and it’s pretty gigantic on me.  At times it was unnerving, because of just how pushy the sellers were.  We quickly learned to never express interest in an object, even if it’s to ridicule something, because they automatically assume that you want to buy it.  Ryan joked about wanting a pipe, and soon the word had spread everywhere and he was offered pipes left and right.  Definitely a unique experience, on the whole.  When all our money was gone, we walked down to the beach.  It was very different from our sunny SoCal beaches.  Very, very cold.

I was glad to get back to the familiar old orphanage.  Being in Mexico felt really funny.  I had to keep reminding myself that we weren’t in the United States, because parts of it felt a lot like home.

These mountains look a lot like something you’d see in California.  Then suddenly I’d see something didn’t seem right at all, like that giant complex of little buildings in the background, or an entire hillside covered in ramshackle huts fabricated of corrugated plastic, sheets of metal, cardboard, and plywood.  It felt like the movie Inception where everything seems like reality except for a small detail that’s just not quite right.

The countryside was just gorgeous.  We climbed up on a hill behind the orphanage.  This is looking down on the campus.  In the middle you can see the big chapel, and in front of it, the building we painted.  It’s the orange building closest to the foreground.  The farthest left building is the dorm we stayed in, and on the right you can see the dirt road headed toward the highway.  The trailer the boys slept in is the white one right behind the other white one in the bottom right corner.  The fun part about that hike was that there weren’t many trails, so we had to blaze our own.  Quite an adventure.  Also, the ground was covered with tiny flowers that made me think of Tangled.

That concludes the highlights of the trip.  We had so much fun together, and as a group we really bonded.  Because not everyone in our senior group could come, those of us who were there felt like we really got to know each other even better.  I had time away from my normal life to think about what I want to be doing next year and what my priorities are.

I have one more thing to tell you about.  This was the most heartbreaking part of the trip, and at the same time it was my favorite part and what I’ll remember most.

This is Gracie (not her real name).  I noticed her right away as one of the happiest, most smiley and friendly of the girls at the orphanage.  I thought she was young, maybe eight or ten.  One morning she came into our room holding a big teddy bear, and handed it to me.   Later she told Mrs. L, who speaks Spanish, that she felt a special connection to me, like we were kindred spirits.  Immediately I became even more interested in her and started spending as much time with her as I could.  With Mrs. L’s help, Gracie told us her story.  

Her mother had abandoned her and sent her to live with a couple who beat her and abused her.  They took her to LA where they wanted her to to “bad things”.  Finally she made it to the orphanage about five months ago.  Her cheerful smile faded and her eyes got sadder and sadder as she spoke.  We gave her hugs and told her that everything was okay, she’s safe and happy now.  I had tears in my eyes.  I’ve heard plenty of stories like Gracie’s, but it’s totally different when you just hear about someone, and when you can see the pain in their eyes as they talk to you.  It’s amazing that she felt a connection to me, who’s always lived in safety and comfort and never known what it was like to be abandoned.  I’m really blessed that she did, though.

Gracie asked that we take this picture while we were watching a basketball game outside together.  She wanted me to take it to town and print it out for her right away, but I told her that once I got back to the States I would print it and send it back.  I took it for granted that she’d be there.

Later I asked Pastor Walker more about her.  He told us that she’d come to them with emotional and psychological problems.  One time, she ate eight hot dogs because she still had the mindset of eating as much as possible whenever there’s food to be had.  Then he said something that shocked me.  Gracie was almost eighteen.  In fact, last Sunday was her birthday.  That meant she had to make a choice.  He hoped she would choose to stay and work at the orphanage where she would be loved and safe, and learn more about Jesus.  But just a couple weeks ago her mother had visited the orphanage, out of the blue, and demanded to know if Gracie turning eighteen meant that she could take her away.  Pastor Walker tried to explain that no, it meant Gracie got to decide, but I have no idea if her mother could pressure her into saying she wanted to leave only to be forced to work for her.  I’ve been praying for her.  I don’t know what her decision was.  I might never see her again.  But I’ll never forget her.  I’m so grateful that I got to meet her and hug her and show her how much I cared.

Out of this adventure, I got a new fantastic point of view.  There are people out there who are hurting.  They can smile and laugh and be perfectly content, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need love just as desperately as any one of us.  You never know what tiny action might cause someone to feel connected to and loved by you.  I want that to be my life story.  My dream is to be someone who makes others feel loved by showing them the love of Christ through me.

Thank you for reading. <3