Leaving Home

I wrote this a while ago, before I left Guatemala, but at the time I was hurting too much. So I’m posting it now, a week or so later and I’m still struggling just as a note.

[So this is a little less lesson and a lot more of just what’s going on. It’s Thursday as I am writing this and I’m leaving Guatemala tomorrow night. And it is breaking my heart. Last night was my last church service here and Katie asked me to speak. So I did. I’ll try to write what I said as close as I remember it.

Hey guys,

I just wanted to thank you guys for the time here and for allowing me to love on you guys. It has been incredible and I’m different because of it. I’ve learned to love more openly and honestly because of you guys.

When I came here, I was not a loving person and I was going to do things here the same way I did it back home. I was going to love ya’ll, but from a distance. I wasn’t going to love you strongly enough to get hurt or so that I would get attached… but… (This is where I started choking up and shaking and almost crying) but I couldn’t do that. From the very first week, I loved you. All of you.

I’ve grown to love every single person in this room. Every one of you means so much to me and it’s going to kill me to leave you. It is breaking my heart and it hurts so much, but know that I wouldn’t change a single moment. I’m praying that God is going to send me back here next year, but I don’t know if that is His plan for me yet. If it was my choice though, I wouldn’t come back next summer. I wouldn’t have to because I would never leave. I’d stay here with all of you.

So I guess what I wanted to say is thank you again. For letting me love you all, and for loving me back. It’s been a blessing. Thank you.

I wish that I had said more, but I couldn’t. I was on the verge of tears and my voice was starting to crack. But every word I said was true. I have learned to love deeper and more sacrificially than I ever have and I will love these kids my whole life, whether God sends me back or not.

It is breaking my heart though. When I started working on packing to go back, I sobbed. How can I leave these kids that have become my world and this place that has become more of a home than anywhere else?

There is one especially that every time I see him, I want to cry. God has laid this one specific child on my heart and at first, I thought; God, You’re crazy. This kids hates me. He glares at me all the time and yells at me (in Korean so I really couldn’t understand him [His old house parents were Korean]) and whenever I have to watch the boys’ house, he makes it clear that he doesn’t want me there from how he treats me. Finally though, I surrendered to His will and started focusing on loving this particular child. At first it was difficult, but I kept working on it and praying for him and after about two weeks, he started to not be so rude towards me, and when he would yell at me, it wasn’t so vehement, and more teasing. If I laughed about it he would smile at me instead of glare. He started picking on me the way the other boys that liked me did and he really started to grow on me. The other day he even came up and hugged me and started talking to me in slow enough Spanish that I would mostly understand. So after making so much progress with him and him finally liking me, I have to leave

Every single child in this place is precious to me. I love them all and nothing in me wants to leave. I don’t want tomorrow to come and ruin all of this. 

Needless to say, emotionally I’m a mess right now. But what I said to the kids last night still stand- despite the pain and the heartbreak, despite the tears, I wouldn’t change a moment and I am so glad that I learned to love these kids fully and completely.]

Now I am back in the United States and I have been for a week and two days… And it feels so… wrong. Wrong to have left the place that I loved and began to think of as home and wrong to have left those kids I love. Still God put me in Guatemala for a reason and He sent me back for a reason. I don’t know what that is, but it know there will be a purpose. I just hope that He chooses to send me back to my Guatemalan home soon.