| El Salvador | Day Six | going home

On Christmas Eve morning, we were ready and waiting for Melvin to pick us up by 4:30am. I guess I hadn’t noticed how busy and tired we had been. I remember getting on the bus and everyone was appropriately quiet for our drive to the airport. I guess sitting there in the dark silence, I decided to recap my trip. I remembered first getting there, how scared I had been to dive in, but how awesome it was to meet those guys at Torre Fuerte. I remembered the vanilla wafer packages they had given us and I started thinking about how loved we felt. How loved I felt immediately upon arriving there. And that is when I lost it. Different parts of the trip ran through my mind as my tears began to freely flow. Mely guiding us through the streets. Claudia and Reina’s stories. Overlooking the city near the Trade Towers. The hundreds of kids we met. Mauricio preaching. Lilian’s hand holding the cross. Telling some of my testimony in Spanish. Hearing the hearts of our new friends. Our magical day the day before.

I continued crying as quietly as I could, but I guess my team heard me. Lauren was to my left and she put her arm around me and I leaned on her shoulder. That was a big moment for me, because I don’t feel like I connect with a lot of people at home and I rarely cry and I don’t ever cry in front of people. But when I heard her tears too, I knew we were all feeling the same way. I know I haven’t talked about my team very much, but that was something about the trip that I really loved. Those girls are awesome and I feel like I can really count on them..I admit it is difficult for me to make friends at home but I just loved these girls so much, and really felt like part of the team. It was so wonderful to spend our trip together, bonding and loving each other as God’s church.

As we neared the airport, I continued thinking about all the people we’d met – Mauricio, Linda, Steve (who I actually already knew from my home church), the cute old ladies at church and the thought that just kept running through my mind was that I was leaving family. How in the world can I think that after knowing people for only 5 days? But it’s exactly how I felt. “I’m leaving family. How can I be leaving my family?” And the crying continued essentially to the airport.

Once we got there, I gathered some composure and we set off, knowing that soon we’d be joining our families for Christmas celebrations. I think I was happy to be going home, but it was hard to tell. And thus our trip to El Salvador came to a close. I think at some point I’ll blog more about “reflections”, but I think this is a good place to end for now.