love

I will have you know that as I write this entry I am sitting in the Belize airport, awaiting my flight home for Christmas. That’s right, I’ll be home for Christmas! I am so thrilled to see my family again and spend the holidays at home where it is miserably cold and snowy, as it should be for Christmas. But I couldn’t have left Belize with a better week than I did this week. 

Last Friday evening I joined a group from the states (from Clovis, New Mexico, to be precise) who was traveling to Belize for a Christmas shoe project with several orphanages. Since my focus here is working with children in the homes, the project was headed by the organization I work for, and one of the orphanages on the list was King’s Home, where I happen to work, they thought I might be of some assistance. So I’ve been tagging along on a week long Christmas shoe extravaganza, and it’s been wonderful. 

On Saturday morning we traveled to Belize City to buy a new pair of shoes for the children of Dorothy Mensy’s Children’s Home, and boy, that was something. Let me begin by explaining that there are approximately 75 children currently living in the home, and Dorothy Mensy’s is considered somewhat of the rejection orphanage of Belize. To put it in perspective, children in other homes are often threatened with Dorothy Mensy’s when they begin acting up. The building is overcrowded (it’s built to accommodate 25 children), run down, dirty, and overwhelming, and at times children can be in just as much danger there as they are at home. It’s a heartbreaking and difficult place to be, and needs an immense amount of help. But everyone deserves to celebrate Christmas, and so we loaded them up in groups of 15-20 via buses, and drove over to a local store to buy each child a new pair of shoes for Christmas. It was chaos from the moment we entered the store, but a positive chaos. Kids were all over the place, running past you, under you, around you, sometimes even on top of you, and it was physically and emotionally exhausting, but we managed to get the job done. If you have ever helped a child try to pick out a pair of shoes, you understand the roller coaster of emotions you undergo trying to satisfy one child, so just imagine attempting to do the same for 75 of them. It was intense.

the kids choosing new shoes

Our second stop on the shoe craze was to an all girl’s vocational school called Y.E.S. This was an entirely different kind of difficult, as all of these girls are teenagers or young adults who are learning various trades and life skills at Y.E.S. because they were never able to complete school. Each of the 25 students received a new backpack for Christmas, a trip to purchase a new pair of shoes, and a nice evening out for dinner. This project was so challenging because it is physically impossible to please a teenage girl, especially when the situation involves shoes. Every girl wanted something very specific, and if she couldn’t find that particular shoe then she immediately retreated into refusal mode, which means she absolutely refused to even look at any other shoe and instead kept trying to somehow trick her foot into magically fitting into her ideal choice. But by the grace of God we eventually found every single student a good fit and proceeded to have a very enjoyable evening with the girls at dinner in town, and then took all of them home.

On our way home that night I rode with a girl from Y.E.S. whose family was unable to celebrate Christmas (at least in the materialistic sense) because they couldn’t afford the gifts and the food and all of the trimmings that most people include in their holiday. So instead they went to the church for a small Christmas dinner, and just had a quiet holiday at home. Well, that only left our team with one choice: to intervene. As soon as we dropped her at home we began planning our attack, and the next day we were able to stop by her house and bring her family enough food for a big, extravagant Christmas dinner (plus some for later) and caroled to them (not well, I might add). I can’t portray the joy on their faces when they realized what was happening. It was a very inspiring and humbling moment, and one I am so thankful I was able to experience.

After our delivery we held a giant Christmas party at Banana Bank (a resort outside of  Belmopan where we were staying for the week) for the children of King’s Home, where they were able to go horseback riding, swim in the pool, play in the yard, and just be kids. It was so incredible to see the kids that I have fallen in love with over the past few months experience the freedom of being a child, and freeing themselves from the chains of their jaded lives. I have never seen them so happy and joyful and relaxed. They played for a couple of hours, and then we had a lavish Christmas dinner in the dining hall, complete with live, local entertainment. Then each child received a new backpack, a few small toys and school supplies, and a brand new pair of shoes (which they chose for themselves online a couple of months ago). It was a perfect night, and I didn’t stop smiling for a several hours after they left. Their smiles and bright eyes that night are the reason that I do what I do.

kids from King's at the pool party

Merry Christmas sweet girl!

It was such a whirlwind week, and if I had to sum it up into one word it would be love. I know that sounds a little cliche, and it probably is, but there isn’t a more accurate description I could use. From the very beginning of the week, I was welcomed into the group with open arms, and I felt so accepted and loved from the first evening I spent with them. The moment we entered Dorothy Mensy’s the children were looking at us with outstretched arms and pleading eyes that turned into bright smiles and laughter with a simple hug. All they needed was to know that they were loved and remembered, and that they mattered. The girls at Y.E.S. are still just girls, yet they have been forced to become adults in a cold world. And they just need a friend, someone to tell them that it’s going to be okay and they are going to make it. We were able to grant them a little freedom from their everyday burdens and bring them a little bit of hope at Christmastime. And the kids at King’s Home just want to be kids and be loved and taken care of. They are still so young and still need to be nurtured and played with and adored. To me, this week represented what Christmas is supposed to be about, what life is supposed to be about: love. It was evident from the beginning and overflowing in every way, and it reminded me of what I’m doing here. I’m here to share love and hope in places that people might not normally find it, and never stop giving. It’s such a simple concept, and yet can be so difficult to fulfill, but so important to always remember.