Final Goodbyes

Jesús Four Siblings

One experience that I will never forget is playing with a little boy named Jesús. Everyday we were there, he would carry around a flat bouncy ball that was missing the plug that holds the air in. Every time I saw him, he would be blowing air into it only to see it deflate. He didn't care though and would play with it like it was a soccer ball. At one point, I saw him climbing up a stack of bricks that was about shoulder high. It was obviously not safe so I took him down and saw that his ball was stuck on the top. After getting it for him, he threw it over the stack and ran around to the other side to get it and repeated this process quite a few times. I decided to get on the other side of the bricks and we threw it back and forth to each other. It was funny because neither of us could see the other so we never knew when the ball would come flying over the bricks. A few times, he tried to throw it over but he couldn't get it above the bricks because he was so short. A few times, I ran around the side and snuck up on him. He got a real kick out of that. Then, all the children were called to sit down and say goodbye to us. In order to cheer them up as we left, we handed out lollipops and gave hugs to all the children and then we left to get ready for dinner and later, getting up at 4 A.M. to fly back to Dallas. It was hard to leave them because it is extremely rare for them to get visitors, but on the other hand I was glad that I could make a difference in their lives. For example, we bought them a new washing machine and dryer to replace the ones that had been broken for years. Because they were broken, they washed all their clothes by hand and dried them by hanging them on the fence. I can't even imagine what washing and drying clothes by hand for 40 children is like because I can barely do my own laundry and my view on doing laundry has definitely changed. As much as I would like the visit them again, I hope that if I go back there, they won't be there and instead, they will have been adopted by loving families and be given a new life. However, I don't see that happening considering the Mexican government has bigger issues to deal with at this time. Just because the children can't be adopted doesn't mean we can't help improve their lives. Like I said before, these children are thrilled with the little things in life and don't need expensive things to be happy. I've learned, especially from this trip, to take nothing for granted whether it is family, friends, or material goods. We really need to take a step back and see how fortunate we are compared to others. I hope that through this blog, you were able to see what happened on the trip, what I observed, and what needs to be done. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, you can email me at 11kmckenna@gmail.com.