Tomorrow is our departure day. We'll be taking a three-hour flight from Denver and then landing in San Francisco, afterwards taking a 10 hour flight (Yay! Sleeping in airplane chairs!) to Korea and then going to Pnom Penh. Phones will be turned off in San Francisco because, as we all know, roaming charges are somewhat less than pleasant to see on your phone bill. This means I'll be mostly out of touch with my parents for the duration of the trip and just about completely out of touch with my friends. I don't quite know what to make of this. I like my independence, I really do, but I've never known what isolation feels like and I don't know how I'll handle being disconnected from my friends and family like this. I've always relied on those people that I love to bring me happiness and to be there when I need them, and the absence of that security and comfort is frightening. I'll definitely have to find a way to compensate for that loss. However, I do think that being a source of happiness and love for the kids in the orphanage will be more than enough to bring me the joy that I've usually gotten from being on the receiving end of comfort myself. I get to be a part of these kids' lives every day during the time I'm allotted to be in Cambodia- I get to make them smile, make them feel loved, make them feel like they have a family. How many thirteen-year-olds get to experience that? How many people get to experience that?! I'm so, so blessed to be given this opportunity.
I keep thinking about preparing for when I get over there only to come to the conclusion that there IS no real way to prepare for this. How do you prepare to go from an affluent valley in a free, healthy, relatively rich and well-supplied country to a country struck with poverty and fresh from genocide? I consciously have this mindset that even though I've been told time and time again and I know in my heart that these kids have nothing, they'e got to have something, right? Everybody's got to have something. But they don't. And I think that's what will both fascinate and devastate me the most- that I willingly and consciously take literally everything for granted and most of the time I don't even realize how incredibly lucky I am. I think it's going to be absolutely overwhelming and I honestly have no idea how I'm going to handle myself.
However! So far, I've been somewhat dreary about this whole trip and I don't want to give you the wrong idea- the phrase "beyond excited" is the epitome of understatements to describe what I'm feeling right now. In mere hours I'll be on my way to experiencing what I expect will be the most amazing and fulfilling experience I'll ever have. I'm thirteen! I'm flying across the world to help orphans! How many people get to do that?!
It's hard, though, I think, to make the kids' needs and feelings your first priority. My first instinct is to pretend this trip isn't going to be hard work and emotionally trying at times and pretend this is a vacation or a soul-searching trip. But it really, really isn't. No doubt I'll come back a different person and no doubt it will be incredibly enjoyable, but the kids come first. Every day, I remind myself that I'll be putting myself second for the entire trip. The title quote for my blog is "Love is keeping the promise [anyway]." And I mean it. The love I feel for these children now and that will absolutely be growing inside me from the moment I step on that plane is worth it. The promise that I've made to help them and to care for them is worth giving up my needs for two weeks. The kids are the soul reason I signed up for this and committing to that promise is going to be one of the toughest but definitely the most rewarding part, and that is worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment