life lately

List of things Alyssa wants to blog about:

1-Food

•  I want to tell you about weekend mornings with my host sisters. When I wake up and see our tortilla-presser and know that I’m about to eat some amazing quesadillas, memelas, huaraches, etc.
• I want to tell you about walking down the hill a bit on Sunday mornings to Doña Kily’s home, greeting her and her daughter and ordering fresh tlacoyos and tamales. Walking back (sharing one of the tlacoyos we just bought because they’re too good not to eat hot out of the frying pan) and chatting with my host mom about how Doña Kily has been making those same tamales and tlacoyos for the past 60 years.
•  I want to tell you about when Doña Mari asks me and a few students to pick some radishes from the garden-because today we’re having pozole at school. I want to show you how excited those students are while they wait in line for their hot and delicious bowl of pozole.
• I want to tell you about how cooking with my host mom has become my best antidote for homesickness and the notebook that we’re planning to fill with my favorite recipes.

2-Time

• I want to tell you about la hora Mexicana and how I’m slowly but surely showing up less and less obnoxiously early to events.
• I want to tell you about the first weeks in Tlaxco that seemed to move so slowly that I meticulously kept track of how long I’d been away from home, mainly to prove to myself that time was indeed passing.
•  I want to tell you about how the 19^th of every month felt like a little victory. Marking one more month away from home and one month more integrated into my familia Tlaxquense.
• I want to tell you about how on December 19^th my life felt so normal that I didn’t notice that my special date had passed. It wasn’t until writing this post that I realized that my YAGM year has entered month number 4.
   
• I want to tell you about the sunsets in colonia Iturbide when the multicolored sky outlines three of Mexico’s highest peaks and time stops for a bit.
• I want to tell you about Hannah, my hermana YAGM, and her call to “stop trying to fill your time with things, but instead let things fill your time.” I want to tell you how and why that’s become my New Year’s resolution.

3-Migration

•        I want to tell you about the 40% of my students who come from single-parent households who tell me about their madre, padre, hermano, primo etc who live allá en los estados unidos.
•        I want to tell you about the days I spent working at the Sagrada Familia Migrant Shelter with my hermano YAGM, Josh.
•       I want to tell you about registering a group of young men into the shelter who had just gotten off la bestia.
•        I want to tell you about entering their responses to questions such as “Are you fleeing danger in your home country?” “Would it be safe or possible for you to return home?” “How many times have you made this journey?” “Have you experienced violence during your journey through Mexico?”
•        I want to tell you about the economic institutions, oppressive regimes, systemic violence, and organized crime that force these migrants to flee their patrias.
•       I want to tell you about how the US has often directly caused the dire situations from which these migrants are fleeing.
•        I want to tell you that because of these experiences and conversations, I will never understand the Christmas story in the same way.

4-Language

•        I want to tell you about my host dad’s love of playing with words, his absurd puns and classic “dad jokes.”
•        I want to tell you about the time I accidentally cursed in my 4-6^th grade English class, because when I learned the word desmadre no one clued me in on the fact that it was a groseria.  I want to tell you about the ridiculous 6^th grade boys who will never let me live that down.
•        I want to tell you how incredibly comforting it feels to be called mija, querida, hermana, maestra.
•       I want to tell you how much I miss hearing my name with familiar English vowel sounds.

I want to tell you about all of this and so much more. I want to share with you all that this crazy, challenging, beautiful year is showing me. I want to, but I’m scared. I’m scared you won’t understand. I’m scared my words will fail. I’m scared to set free the experiences and memories that, for now, just exist between my community and me.

The more Spanish I learn the more frustrated I become when I try to translate new vocabulary or phrases into English. They end up sounding off, losing some of the beauty and some of the sentido. The deeper I dive into this YAGM year the more challenging it’s becoming to explain the true richness and complexity of my vida Mexicana.  In the coming weeks and months, I’ll hopefully share much of this ever-growing list. Some of these I’ll guard away for a longer conversation in person over some good coffee, because that’s what they deserve. All them will stay forever in my heart and mind in a swirling mess of English, Spanish, and Spanglish--translation unnecessary.

la hortaliza and humility

Each grade at IEIMC spends about an hour of their week working in the school's garden. While each grade has their own plant bed, the children also spend a fair amount of the time watering, turning compost, weeding, and doing general garden maintenance. I have the absolute joy of getting to spend this time with the students. The hortaliza is a place of community, learning, laughter, and messiness for the IEIMC students. For me it's a place of peace and a place of humility.

The first time I headed to the garden it became immensely clear to all involved that I had little to no idea what I was doing. To start, I knew basically zero gardening vocabulary (come on Spanish minor, where are you when I need you?!!). I ended up doing a lot of miming and asking for things in roundabout ways using the vocabulary I did know (the box with the one wheel and the sticks (wheelbarrow)? the snake that has water (hose)? the giant fork thing (pitchfork)? etc.). As a result, the very patient teachers recognized my uncertainty and general ineffectiveness and gave me pretty basic tasks. I spent a lot of my first few weeks in the garden, weeding, watering, organizing the tool shed, and completing other tasks that were essentially foolproof. Despite their kindly easing me into my work in the garden, I still had a few mishaps along the way. One week, I spent hours digging up all of big branches and tree trunks that had been placed in the beds to elevate them and add compost. I had misunderstood (a pretty common occurrence) and it turns out the teachers had only asked me to dig up a few of those branches from each bed. So, I spent hours the next week re-planting all of the branches I had mistakenly dug up. 

Slowly but surely,  I started to grow in gardening confidence. The horataliza began to feel like home. I knew where everything went. I took pride in sweeping out the tool shed and organizing the watering cans. I started to lead the kids in their hortaliza time with more confidence and joy (largely because I could actually call the tools by their real names, not my made up weird descriptions of them). 

Then, one day, Maestra Laura (the 5th and 6th grade teacher) asked that I take some of my solo horatliza hours and transplant the spinach that had been growing in the greenhouse into one of the open plant beds. I immediately slapped a big smile on my face, told her, "Yes! Of course! Absolutely!" (in hindsight she was probably a tad confused by my very enthusiastic response to her spinach request). I trotted off to the garden with  my head high, SO EXCITED for my first real, challenging gardening task. In my mind this task was the culmination of all my gardening improvements over the past few weeks. They had clearly seen my growth and development and now trusted me with such a sacred task as transplanting spinach. I took as much care as humanly possible transplanting that spinach. I gently watered it, covered it in wonderful compost-rich soil, made sure that the roots were deeply planted and the leaves just gently resting on the soil. I walked away so confident that in just a few weeks, we'd be feasting on my deliciously transplanted spinach in the lunchroom. 

Later that day, the first graders had their time in the garden. With their Maestra, Lupita, we transplanted carrots into their plant bed. After we finished, I definitely took the opportunity to walk them all past the spinach recently transplanted by yours truly. It was probably the proudest moment of my fledgling gardening career.

Fast forward 5 days...

Expertly transplanted and thriving carrots

The remains of the spinach

I arrived in the hortaliza Monday morning to begin the daily watering. I walked past the carrots-they looked great and were truly coming into their own and adjusting to their new bed. Then I arrived at my spinach. It was dry, brown, and dead as a doornail. I was crushed! The death of the spinach elicited a ridiculously real and emotional reaction from me. My gardening game had been shown up by a group of six-year olds. Later that day, I shared the tragic news with Maestra Laura. She just chuckled and said, "Oh don't worry about it! Sometimes the roots take, and sometimes they don't. Why don't you try the radishes next."

My dead spinach served me my first of many needed doses of humility.Yes, it was very humbling to watch first graders seamlessly transplant carrots while I struggled and failed to do the same. The more humbling experience, however, was realizing that I was the only one who really cared that the spinach had died. 

I was so eager to prove myself to the fellow teachers. I was ready to show them that despite my misunderstandings and lacking vocabulary, I was indeed learning and growing. I was ready to scream, "Look, I can do it! You can give me a task and I can fulfill it!" But, they weren't asking me to prove myself, they weren't providing a test or a metric against which to view my "progress" of the past few weeks. They were just wanting me to try and transplant some of the spinach. 

We've been societally conditioned to attach a value to what we can do and how well we can do it. Our successes and achievements, while laudable, can poison our understanding of our own identity. We can be tricked into thinking our personal worth only exists in places where those achievements mean something. In a sense, since arriving in Mexico, I've been stripped of a lot of what I thought made up my own identity. What I studied, where I studied, organizations I was a part of, leadership positions I held--most of the things I tied my identity to in the past four years have very little bearing on my work here. Especially when I'm elbow deep in soil surrounded my laughing niños. In those moments, what I do and what I've done are infinitely less important than that I am. I am in the midst of those children, I am listening to their stories, I am trying to build relationships rooted in love, I am. It's incredibly humbling (and at times frustrating) to try and build an identity based on being rather than doing.  I'm certainly more comfortable with the latter. I consistently remind myself that what I'm hoping to learn and experience through this year of accompaniment won't be like anything I've done before. It can't summed up into few bullet points on a resume. Like most things that have truly holy value, these relationships and experiences transcend our earthly understanding of merit. And, to me, that is wonderful, scary, liberating, and so very humbling.

Some cuties and their carrots 

¿te puedo ayudar?

In the one month that I´ve been living in Tlaxco, I´ve asked ¿te puedo ayudar?/can I help you? countless times. Usually when I´d say these words, I´d be awkwardly standing towards the wall or corner fiddling with my hands and watching people in my host community effortlessly swirl about -cleaning, cooking, preparing, organizing, getting kids into line, giving out instructions, returning homework etc etc. I´d keenly observe what was going on around me, ask if I could help in someway and await (hopefully) very detailed instructions on how I could possibly assist in a non obtrusive and at least somewhat productive way.
Poco a poco/little by little , I´ve be able to integrate myself more and more into the work of la escuelita and my home, thanks entirely to the seemingly boundless patience of my host family and the other teachers at IEIMC. They have so graciously allowed me and my broken spanish to "help," whether they truly needed another set of hands or not (usually the latter). They saw my desire to be in community with them and patiently allowed me to "help." They saw my desire to belong, to contribute, to do something other than awkwardly watch and fiddle with my hair. In allowing me to help, they´ve in turn provided me with the critical help I needed in these awesome, uncomfortable and challenging weeks of transition. They've provided me the opportunity to carve out little spaces and places of regularity and routine. They've helped me begin to build an identity in this community  that is built on tasks and action, one that goes beyond my obvious foreignness.
The joy I felt this week when I successfully put away the dishes in their correct spot with my host mom after comida was  ridiculous. When she smiled and noted, "I didn't even have to tell you where they belong!" a sizeable lump of gratitude and contentment grew in my throat. Slowly feeling like I'm becoming a part of this community, in moments such as these, has brought so much peace to a time when peace can sometimes be elusive.
Help is a tricky thing, this year I'm sure will continue to challenge my understanding of help and helping. For now, I'm happy to say that over the past few days I've lessened my usage of "¿Te puedo ayudar?" Now I more often find myself saying te ayudo/I'll help you, or even better, just silently beginning to work alongside my companions without feeling the need to announce my presence.
 In the month that I've been living in Tlaxco, I've come to feel that our cultural understanding of help really rather wonky. I always felt the need to ask permission before offering assistance or beginning to work alongside. I never really thought about the words I was saying, I asked "te puedo ayudar" so thoughtlessly it was almost a reflex. As I began to pay closer attention to myself and my surroundings, I realized that for as many countless times I've asked permission to help, that same question was never asked of me.
My host sister didn't ask if I understood the meaning of the idiom she just used, she just kindly explained it to me, knowing it wouldn't have been something my Spanish minor would have covered. When my host mom saw that I was walking around the house without sufficient slippers for our tile floor, she immediately gave me an extra pair of her daughter's. When I so clearly had no idea what I was doing in the hortaliza/garden, Maestra Lupita didn't ask me if I needed or wanted help, she just drew me a diagram of the different plant beds so that I would better understand. The complete stranger seated next to me on the bus to Apizaco who saw that I was unsure and uncomfortable, made sure I knew when and where I should get off.  In four short weeks here I could fill a lengthy notebook of the times I've received help that I neither asked for nor was asked if I needed.
I think I've never been asked "te puedo ayudar" because it's a silly and irrelevant question. When my community saw an awkward, tall, homesick, unsure, blonde gringa, they immediately showered me with love, support, and help. They saw a need and responded. There was no need to ask any questions.
I think we hesitate and ask "te puedo ayudar" because we worry that stepping in to assist another is assuming that they can't do it on their own. When we need to ask for help, we feel we've failed. In a culture that puts an absurd and at times harmful premium on self sufficiency and independence, asking for help means we've fallen short. Help leaves us feeling lesser.
My experience this past month has proven to me the ridiculousness of this notion. The incredible amount of help I've received has left me feeling loved, empowered, lifted up, greater. My community isn't telling me "you can't do it on your own, so I'll help you," but rather "you don't need to do it on your own, I'll help." In one short month my community in Tlaxco has taught me what it truly means to be in relationships rooted in the notions of accompaniment, mutuality and interdependence. In the coming 10, I hope and pray I'll be able to follow in their example.

día de las salidas al campo

Most every Tuesday this summer was outing day. It was undoubtedly the absolute best thing about being the Pioneer B Area Director at Lutheridge. Each week, I would sit in the Senior Staff room pouring over maps of Pisgah National Forrest looking at new potential outing sites and debating if connecting this waterfall and that dinner site with this short hike would be a feasible outing. Every Tuesday lunch was like Christmas morning to me. As I ran about camp grabbing the last minute things we´d need to take with us for the afternoon, my grin was as wide as a six year old who got exactly what he wanted from Santa.

We´d pull offsite to the resounding choruses of silly camp songs and wind our way through the Blue Ridge Parkway. Between the songs and stories and jokes I´d hear gasps and little choruses of "wow" and "ohmygosh!". My heart would be so full of children marvelling at the awesomeness of creation before them. We´d arrive at our hike or dinner spot or base of the waterfall and I'd be treated to watching community develop in its truest and most unadulterated manner. Children would make friends with campers in other cabin groups, counselors would mingle with campers they hadn´t before engaged, new counselors would show initiative while returning staff would beautifully lead from the middle, meanwhile that one camper who had been observing on the outskirts finally dove headfirst into a new friendship and that one who´s faith had been rocky experienced the divine in an entirely new way. Outing day was my favorite day.

3rd and 4th graders head off on their salida

Every Tuesday this year at Instituto de Educación Integral de Magdalena Cervantes is outing day. Or día de las salidas al campo. Every grade experiences one class period out on the shores of the nearby river or in the fields and trails of the moutains beckoning just outside the school´s gate. I have the absolute honor of accompanying each of these groups. Tuesday is undoubtedly the best thing about being a YAGM at IEIMC. When it´s la hora de salir (time to leave) the children respond to the word "formense!" (line up!) with so much gusto their pens and notebooks are almost left spinning on their desks. After a mad dash to the school gate, the teacher performs one last head count (a very familiar move) and we´re off. As it is the tail end of the rainy season, we head to the river to take advantage of seeing its beauty before it dries up in dry winter season.

I´m pulled in a million directions as soon as we arrive the precious children are eager to show me their favorite spot to dip their feet in, the best rock for sitting and soaking up the sun , their favorite slope to roll down, the oldest and biggest cactus plant, and the best place to scamper up the rocks and admire the view. I watched classes of first and second graders sit in a circle and try to count the different types of trees around them. I saw the elation and surprise on their faces when they realized that there were too many to even count! I watched 3rd and 4th graders help each other to wade across the river so that all could be included in a game of tag on the opposite shore. I watched 5th and 6th graders get to just relax with their teacher, dip their toes in the water and talk about life.

The joys and benefits of outings are universal. By taking, even just an hour, to experience creation and the beauty of community without the bounds of our tiresome and meddlesome institutions we are treated to an incredible growth in relationship with one another and relationship with God. It´s no wonder that whenever Jesus meant serious business he went out-out to the mountain, out the dessert, out the sea, out the garden. Out into creation to experience it with His community. What a joy I have this year to get to go OUT and experience creation with mine.

 1st and 2nd graders pause and chat with their teacher about their experience 

sitios de trabajo

As I sit in my room at el centro Luterano surrounded by my years worth of belongings that has been packed and unpacked and repacked to accommodate our 3 week in-country orientation, I think it might possibly be beginning to sink in that I'm actually here in Mexico and that tomorrow I move to Tlaxco to really dive into my YAGM experience. Obviously blogging about the amazing worksites we've had the privilege to visit is the most efficient use of my time... (apparently procrastination exists after college too).

One of the unique aspects of the YAGM Mexico program is the diversity of worksites. As we are not part of an ELCA global companion church here in Mexico, our worksites are the product of the relationships our country coordinators (and previous country coordinators) have built with various social service organizations throughout the country. As we have 2 more volunteers than last years YAGM cohort, we have a few new work sites (mine included!) and the spirit of accompaniment of YAGM continues to be graciously embraced and welcomed in more and more awesome organizations. While the missions of various organizations in which we are working are vastly different (labor rights to dry toilets to indigenous libraries), the same spirit of radical hospitality and an incredible passion for serving creation was palpable in each visit over the past 3 weeks. Below is a list of the 13 amazing organizations where my compadres and I will be serving with and all too brief explanations that do not at all do the organizations justice. I hope this helps give some context to our group's year. More than anything, I hope this shows the beautiful diversity of passion, love, spirit, and joy that accompanies the call to love thy neighbor.

The YAGMéx fam post-hiking in Tepotzlán

Tochan: Nuestra Casa, Mexico City (Grace)
Tochan is the Nauhatl word meaning "our home" and provides long term shelter for refugees and migrants. Many of it's guests are Central Americans fleeing violence, poverty, and political instability. Many have experienced human rights abuses along their journey. Tochan provides shelter and stability while channeling their guests to other organizations that can help meet their needs (medical, financial, documentation, psychological, etc)

Casa de los Amigos, Mexico City (Grace)
Casa de los Amigos is a bit more challenging to describe-it's part hostel, part shelter, part Quaker meeting house, part community center, part advocacy center, part awesome place for all, with sustainable living practices. Needless to say, its a force to be reckoned with as far as social service providers go in Mexico City.

Centro Juvenil, Mexico City (Gracia)
Centro Juvenil is a youth center in the city that focuses on providing a safe and accountable play environment for the city's youth. Utilizing schools and local parks, they provide activities in ways that enrich the children's social, academic and physical well-being.

Centro de Estudios Ecumenicos, Mexico City (Gracia)
CEE is a national organization that unites different faith communities under common social justice issues. They were founded in the 1960's and have been a force of comfort, solidarity and empowerment for various marginalized groups in Mexico. They do way too many amazing things to list here.

Proyecto de Derechos Económicos, Culturales y Sociales (ProDESC), Mexico City (Ryana)
ProDESC works to fight for and protect the rights of indigenous and communal lands in Mexico. They have taken on national and international cooperations, advocated, and shed light on situations of injustice throughout the country. (They're full of some bad-ass lady lawyers who kick butt and take names).

Espacio entre Mujeres, Mexico City (Melissa)
Espacio entre Mujeres is a multifaceted organization that provides safety and support (psycological, educational, medical, and shelter) for women who have experienced domestic violence. They are one of just 3 such organizations in the Distrito Federal and as such serve thousands of women and children in need. They have both short and long term shelters as well as a center that provides all kinds of services to women and children who are not currently staying in their shelter.

Tepeximilpa, Mexico City (Melissa)
Tepeximilpa is a community center that offers classes and activities for personas de la tercer edad (the elderly). A few blocks away from the community center's main building is a community kitchen. The kitchen is public and is open daily for all who would like to get a full meal for 10 pesos (less than $0.75 USD).

Sesentanimililis, Ayotzinapan, Cuetzalan del Progresso, Puebla (Hannah)
Sesentanimililis is situated in a small indigenous community outside of Cuetzalan del Progresso. It primarily serves as a library and community center promoting life skills, such as literacy to the youth of the community.

Albergue de la Sagrada Familia, Apizaco, Tlaxcala (Josh)
The Sagrada Familia shelter is a short term (48 hrs or fewer) shelter that cares for migrants making the arduous trek northward. The shelter backs up to La Bestia (the beast). La bestia is a train that many migrants will attempt to board in order to expedite their journeys. It is a hostile and dangerous journey. La Sagrada Familia offers them a warm bed, shower, meal and community as they continue their journeys.

Instituto de Educación Integral Magdalena Cervantes, Tlaxco, Tlaxcala (me!)
IEIMC is a primary school with an environmental focus. They strive to have their students connect with their community's agricultural roots while also promoting self sufficiency, sustainability, healthy living, and an appreciation for nature.

CIPAAC, Puebla, Puebla (Becca)
CIPAAC is a school for persons with special needs. They teach vocational skills to their students and work to break the existing stigmas surrounding that population. The school has a green house and kitchen where the students experientially learn life skills. The school director summed up their philosophy beautifully, "The only disability our students have is what society has placed upon them."

La Jugareta, Tepotzlán, Morelos (Catherine)
La jugareta is a children's organization that advocates for the right for children to play. They provide spaces and workshops for children to become involved in productive play in various small neighborhoods throughout the region.

Sarar Transformación, Tepotzlán, Morelos (Justin)
Sarar is an environmental organization that promotes responsible water usage. They provide classes in hygiene and sanitation. They focus on water treatment, soapy water management, bioconstructed buildings, urine and feces management, and dry toilets.

As we all part ways, I ask that you hold each of my fellow YAGMs in your thoughts and prayers. I hope that these (all too) brief overviews of the sites that we'll be accompanying can provide insight into the diverse, passionate, amazing, challenging, rewarding, confusing, beautiful year we have before us.

Catch ya in Tlaxco,

Alyssa

Traveling mercies to these wonderful goofballs. Que Dios les bendiga.

flashes of familiarity

Our group spent the full week we were in Mexico in Tepotzlán, a town about 1 hour south of Mexico City. We were there to live with host families and partake in an intensive 5 day/30 hr language crash course. It was our first gentle push out of our comfort zones and away from our family of 12 (10 YAGM+ Lindsay and Omar). We lived in pairs in 5 different homestays scattered throughout the small town and met in 4 different classes based on previous experience with the language. It was an incredibly enriching and equally exhausting experience.

host family from Tepotzlán

            On Thursday of our week we met as a group after having “comida” (the hearty main meal of the day served around 3pm) with our host families to hike up to an ancient temple, El Tepozteco. It was rainy, thundering, and my brain was nearing dead after 4 days of class and constant Spanish at home. I was cranky and not particularly looking forward to the prospect of being electrocuted on the top of a slippery mountain in Mexico.

the view from Tepozteco

            It took roughly 30 seconds of hiking for me to remember the childlike joy that fills my heart whenever I get to experience nature in that way. Just like that, I was filled with the familiar despite being surrounded by the unfamiliar. After an hour of pura escalera (purely stairs) we arrived at the cumbre (peak). Looking out from the mountain, past the town of Tepotzlán below, past the nearest rocky, jungle-like peaks far in the horizon were rolling blue mountains. The late afternoon sun, and the post rain-haze created the perfect light and if I stared long enough, I was back on the blueridge parkway on a Saturday this summer. There, framed between beautiful and wild unfamiliarity, was a flash of the familiar.

            Those flashes were present in so much of our in-country orientation, bringing me peace and proving to me time and time again the power of our shared humanity. Even in the often mundane and quotidian, there were flashes of the familiar framed within the unfamiliar. The playful joking around at the dinner table between my two host sisters in Tepotzlán was a flash of the familiar. The games of tag at Hannah’s worksite and the way that children interpret and reinterpret the rules of a game were (precious) flashes of the familiar. The random ‘90s hits that would mix between Central and South American music while we traveled from worksite to worksite were flashes of the familiar.

            More remarkable than those tastes of my life at home were the times when things that two weeks ago would have felt unfamiliar, have anchored me in familiarity. The sounds and rhythm of Spanish, the smells of tortillas and agua fresca, the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the radical hospitality and welcome of the different volunteer work sites we’ve visited, are all starting to feel more and more familiar and bring more and more peace and calm to our chaotic time of transition. I can only imagine how these flashes of familiarity will continue to change and grow and rechange and regrow as this year continues.

familiarly and unfamiliarly yours,

Alyssa

The YAGM family (missing Lindsay very much!)

como ser una misionera

Saludos de México! Our group of 10 has arrived safely and enjoyed our first full day here in el distrito federal. We all look like a flock of tall, (mostly) blonde lost ducklings following after Lindsay and Omar, our country coordinators. You could say we’re a tad conspicuous.

We are staying at a convent for the first 4 days of our in country orientation. We have had the privilege to engage las hermanas in lots of conversation about their lives, our lives, and the unlikely intersections between them. In one of theses conversations Hermana Margarita was explaining to our dinner table some of the specific valores/values of the Las Hermanas Guadalupanas. She told us that they believe in radical hospitality and in seeing “la cara de dios en cada huesped” “the face of God in each guest.” They also strive to listen “con los oidos de su corazon” “with the ears of their heart” to every guest and every person they encounter. They serve and love their neighbors indiscriminately, a value at the core of the YAGM program.

In conversations with these beautiful hermanas, I feel that I finally should be fully honest (mostly with myself) regarding my official title this year. I am a missionary-a word that provokes a strongly negative and visceral reaction. By taking on that title I am saddled with a history of oppressive evangelism, especially in Latin America, that leaves me grief-stricken and disgusted with the actions of an institution I love. When explaining my work this year I carefully danced around the “m-word” emphasizing the fact that I’ll be living in a host community, working in a secular NGO, focusing on relationship building etc. But, in the past few days it’s a term with which I’ve begun to come to peace.

           

I’m a missionary. I’m a tutor. I’m a servant. I’m una hija (daughter). I’m dependent. I’m vulnerable. I’m a student. I’m not here to help or fix or change or instruct. To do so would assume that I-as a US American, Christian 22 year old hold the monopoly on progress, virtue, faith. I’m here to live in community.  I’m here to seek out and listen to the many stories that make up this beautifully complex and diverse country, without imposing my own. I’m here to listen “con los oidos de mi corazón” and see “la cara de Dios en cada persona.” That is the mission to which I have been called. The mission to accompany without judgment, to serve without expectation of reciprocation, to love without distinction, and to live without the markers of material success as validation.

Peace be the journey,

Alyssa