Everyone Smiles in the Same Language

"Everyone smiles in the same language." This quote was something I thought about a LOT while I was in Haiti. See, most of the people down there speak little to no English. Everyone speaks Creole, a French dialect, so communication was very interesting.

I went down there knowing that we didn't all speak the same language, but not really knowing just how much that would impact our mission trip. As much as I would have liked to talk about God, I just wanted to be able to talk about anything! But that's not the way it worked out. So I got very good at smiling at people.

It seems like I've heard multiple stories of people who were depressed with life and didn't feel that it was worth living, but then someone smiled at them or even just said hi and their perspective changed. So I decided to use the only common language I had: a smile.

On Monday, we woke up and had Mass at 7am, bright and early. After Mass, we ate breakfast and then went to help serve lunch to the children. I guess I should explain more about what the mission does. They run a school for about 800 children, from pre-school age up through 6th grade. School days are from 8am-12pm and each day the children line up in front of the main building to sing the National Anthem and then they proceed to their classrooms, grabbing a piece of bread to eat along the way. And as they walk to class, they sing a song that says "Thank you, God, Thank you."

The kids lining up and singing before school starts.

Grabbing bread while walking to class

Anyway, after we had eaten, we went to help with serving food to the kids. Because the school day is so short and there are so many of them, the men and women making the food begin serving around 9:30/10ish. The next few pictures describe the setup of everything and how it all works. Basically all the food is cooked outdoors in massive quantities, dished up, and served to the kids.

The "fire pits" where the women cook the food

In the middle of cooking

The bowls/food we served the children.

Here are some pictures of us serving the kiddos....as well as a classroom picture.

Mrs. Shoup handing out food

Lauren and Abigail serving food

One of the classrooms....very much like an outdoor pavilion.

Once we were done serving and the children had left for the day, we ate lunch and then went to pick egg plant from the field where the mission grows a bunch of different vegetables. Here is the end result of our picking for the afternoon:

Eggplant!

And that was pretty much the summary of our first day, Monday. I just really learned a lot about smiling and how valuable it is in communicating - especially when it's your only form of communication. Just look at this beautiful child and how can you not smile?

Haiti Mission Trip: Recap and Overview

Dear Readers,

I'm so sorry to have disappointed you last week by not posting anything. :( I had every intention of posting about Haiti while being there. Once I arrived, I did have access to a computer and to internet, but I decided that I really just wanted to give up technology for the week, so I chose not to post anything. However, I plan on using this week to update you on all that happened last week :)

I would like to use this post to give you an overview and explanation of the trip, and then over the next few days, I will go into more detail for each day. For starters, the trip was planned by a friend of mine, who ended up not being able to go, but there were 4 of us who ended up going: Lauren, Abigail, and Mrs. Shoup. On Sunday, March 10th, we flew to the Port au Prince airport in Haiti and then rode 2 hours in a van to get to our final destination for the week: Kobonal, Haiti. Here are a few pictures from our airplane travels.

Abigail, Lauren, and Me...waiting at 4am in the airport

The sunrise from the plane

Then as we were driving to Kobonal, I took lots of pictures. Haiti is beautiful! I couldn't believe how pretty the scenery was: mountains surrounding us; lots of green; gorgeous warm weather. It was stunnning.

Enjoying the beautiful warm weather!

The mountains we drove through

Once we arrived in Kobonal, we went straight to the mission where we were staying. The mission run by SOLT (The Society of Our Lady of the Trinity) and the priest who lives down there has been there for over 20 years. Anyway, we arrived and got settled into the guest house where we were staying. Fr. Glenn said Mass for us a little while later and then we ate dinner and pretty much went to bed after that.

The room where we stayed.

 Well that's all for today's post.....stop by throughout the week to read/see more! :)

The Hands and Feet of Christ

What does it mean to be the hands and feet of Christ? What does it mean to truly love? How can I sacrifice my own pleasures for the sake of helping someone else?

For spring break this semester, I will be going a mission trip to Haiti. We will be there for a week, starting tomorrow, March 10th. Please keep us in your prayers. This is an exciting time. A time to discover what it's really like to be Christ to someone. It's also a terrifying time as this is my first time out of the country. I'm excited to serve, (not gonna lie, I'm psyched about the warm weather), but nervous about what it will be like.

I've realized in the last day or so that I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. I don't know what it's really like to be without food or money or clothes. I don't know what it's like to have poverty in my life. I don't want my own selfishness to get in the way of serving those around me. This trip is going to be a big lesson in trust, love, and self-gift.

As I am there, I will keep all of you in my prayers! Please check back for future posts and updates about our trip - I'll do my best to keep you updated.

And as I'm going, I pray that I will keep this in mind:

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.” — C.T. Studd

Challenge # 1: Daily Prayer Time

Do you have a best friend? Someone you love talking to...someone you could talk to for hours and hours....they know you almost better than you know yourself? I have several friends like that and talking to them really makes my day better every time I see them.

But then there are people whom I see around a lot, but never find time to talk to them and hang out. I definitely don't know them as well and probably wouldn't talk to them about everything going on in my life. Lastly, there are the people whom I've never talked to in my life. Why? the opportunity just never presented itself.

What is the point of all this? Well, what I want to know is, is Jesus one of your best friends? Is he someone you can talk to all the time about anything? If he's not, why not? If he is, good job, keep up the good work. Jesus is the only person who knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our hearts so well since he created them. He is interested in hearing about your life - the good, the bad, and the ugly ;) Will you tell him about it?

Practically speaking, how do we get to know Jesus? After all, he lives in heaven and it's not like we can go have coffee with him. Well, we get creative. Do you know what the five love languages are? Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gift Giving, and Physical Touch. Jesus wants to love us in all these ways.

Quality time is the easiest and perhaps one of the most important ones. How can we get to know Jesus if we don't spend time with him? Go to the chapel and just sit and listen. Or grab a journal and write to him. If you don't have access to a chapel, then find a spot in your room or somewhere that you won't get interrrupted.

Words of Affirmation. When we listen to what God has to tell us, he will often whisper that he loves us. We can also affirm God by thanking him for what he has given us in life.

Acts of Service. Well the Cross for starters. That was the biggest sacrifice ever made. I'd say that counts. We can serve Christ by serving those around us and seeing Christ in them.

Gift Giving. This one's a little trickier, but I usually think of it as giving God your time, or writing him letters/journaling....hmm I'll have to think more on this one.

Physical Touch. This is another tough one, but receiving him in the Eucharist is what comes to my mind.

Be creative! Jesus wants a personal relationship with each one of us. He knows our hearts and how we best love others, so let him love you the way you receive love, and learn to love him the way you love others.

Start small. 5-10 minutes a day is okay to start with....something I've discovered is that the more you get to know Jesus, the more time you want to spend with him. If you start praying but have nothing to say, then just listen. Or read the Bible. Or just sit and look at the Tabernacle in awe. It takes time, but it's worth it in the end. He wants to spend time with us.

Lent is a Time for Growth

It's Lent!!! But of course, you probably already knew that since it started on Ash Wednesday, and here we are at Sunday. I wanted to blog sooner about this, but did not get the opportunity as last week was crazy-busy for me!

Lent. A time of reflection. A time of sacrifice. A time of growth. Growing up, Lent has always been something that I immensely disliked. I won't say hated, but it was pretty close. I hate seafood, I love dessert, and I'm not very good at fasting. This combination of things have made Fridays in Lent my least favorite days of the year. My negative feelings about Lent have been going on since I was probably at least 10, if not before. I realized this year for the first time, just how negatively I feel about it - and I decided that something needs to change.

The season of lent is, after all, something that the Church teaches, and Christ was in the dessert desert (lol) for 40 days, so there's gotta be something to this whole fasting and praying thing. Soo my main goal this lent is to learn to love lent and see the beauty in it. A daunting task, yes, but entirely possible since God loves to do the impossible. :)

How am I going to do this? Well, I have several things I"m doing. First, I have decided not to give up dessert since it has been more distracting and frustrating than fruitful. But obviously I still can not eat meat on Fridays and I still have to fast. Sooo I am working on learning more about fasting as well as finding other sources of protein besides seafood (because even though God can do the impossible, I'm totally fine with my dislike of seafood never changing....sorry for everyone who grew up along the ocean front). That's my first goal.

The second thing I'm doing, is trying to really put my life in order. This whole semester (and we've only been here like a month!) I've been stressed out and not sleeping well, and I really just haven't been very disciplined with my time (aka, I'm writing this blog post now rather than studying spanish :P) Anyway, so goal number two is to work on discipline in my life with studies. I am also striving to have a daily prayer time of at least 15-20minutes. I've been working toward this for a long time and last semester was the first time I've really been successful so I'm going to keep working at it this lent.

Third, I'm going to do some hard-core spring cleaning in my life. I love clothes. I love music. I love movies. I love a lot of material things, which is not bad - provided that these things are building me up, not tearing me down; helping my soul rather than hurting it. I tend to dress modestly and listen to clean music/watch good movies...meaning that there is nothing in my closet or on my shelf that is explictly bad. However, it's often the things that fall in that "gray area" that need to be re-looked at.

Just a funny spring-cleaning quote to make you smile

Sooo this lent, I will be spring-cleaning my movies, music, clothes, and more. I will be issuing a weekly challenge on my blog (possibly posting it on Mondays...depending on my schedule). This challenge will be in part to remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing, but also to encourage all of you to join me as well. It will be hard, but soo worth it in the end.

Challenge accepted.

Are you up for the challenge? Let this lent be one of the best ones you've experienced - be ready to purify your heart, mind, and soul by letting God work in your life.

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

You've probably heard the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover," but have you ever thought about how that can apply to people? There are millions of people out there - each one different from the last. How do you know what each person is like if you don't know them? The simple answer is: you don't.

There are so many times when I've seen someone maybe across the room or even sitting near me in class and I automatically make a judgement about them. It may be a great judgement or observation, such as noticing their style of dressing or how nice their hair looks. But there have certainly been times when I look at someone and think, "I bet they don't work very hard on their homework" or "they don't seem very friendly." Yet in both of these examples, the person could easily just not understand the teacher and so they look confused all the time, but they spend hours and hours trying to understand the material. And in the second example, the person might just be shy.

Here is a great quote from Mother Teresa:

Rather than automatically judging people and making assumptions about them, we should love them and get to know them first before assuming anything. Maybe try smiling at those people who are shy - you might just get a new friend!

Words Have Power

Words have power. Have you ever thought about that? What you say, what you read, what you hear - all these things have an influence on your life. Sometimes for good and sometimes for bad.

Musical Notes

Music. There are soo many songs out there and different genres of music to listen to. Christian, pop, rap, hip-hop, country, etc. You can find just about any radio station suited to your taste. How many times have you heard a song but never realized what the words are in it? If you take time to really listen and find out what the lyrics are, you may be surprised by what you hear. And often in pop songs, those fun songs can have a tendency to be implying something bad. Not always, but often. Is there better music we can choose to listen to?

Movies!

How about movies? Movies are one of my favorite things to watch in my free time. I LOVE movies! There's so much creativity and great filming and wonderful characters. But just because I love movies doesn't mean I'll watch just anything. Unfortunately, there are countless movies filled with crude sexual humor and foul language. We need to take time to reevaluate what we're watching and decide if it's uplifting us or bringing us down. Is our speech improving or becoming more degrading? Don't get me wrong, sometimes language is in a movie because of historical reasons or to show a character's change/improvement, but these sort of movies should be watched with discretion and in a limited way. The words you hear over and over again can easily become engrained in your mind and just as easily come out of your mouth when you least expect it.

What are you listening to?

What we listen to impacts us more than we realize. So the next time you're listening to a song, pay attention to the lyrics and meaning of the song - and when you go to see the newest movie, double check what you'll be putting into your mind. As Christians, we want to listen to/hear things that will uplift and encourage us. We want to be pure of mind and heart (and speech!).

Our Deepest Fear

What are you afraid of? Spiders? Monsters? Horror Films? Meeting new people? We all have fears of some kind, which can be understandable, but what if our greatest fear was actually about how brilliant, talented, and fabulous we are? This quote from Marianne Williamson is one of the most powerful ones I have ever read - and probably one of my new favorites:

(In case you found the text difficult to read, here it is again)
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Are these things you're afraid of? Being talented and gorgeous because God made you that way? Rather than shrink back in fear, we must stop believing the lies out there that tell we're not great. We are great! And we have the power to change and influence the world for the better - so believe in yourself and believe that God made you great (because he did) and go out and let the light of Christ shine through you. :)