Some final thoughts

I am on the plane to go home and a few things have occurred to me. One, I had a very sheltered trip. We lived as a team, we ate as a team. We drove around in a covered tap tap with a door that bolted shut. On the way to the airport this morning, since our tap tap went to the Dominican Republic, three of us rode in the back of a pick-up truck. At every intersection, we were approached by young men asking for money.

We stopped at a convenience mart on the way home from Canaan to buy cocas. The translators went in, and so did Stefanie, but i was too tired to get up. I'm wishing now that I had. Also, if we had eaten at a restaurant other than the resort, I think i would've had a different experience. Next time I will know to seek and ask for something just a little different.

The other thing that occurs to me as I fly home, is that I want to go home different. I have seen things that I had previously only seen on TV, I have held children who are fortunate if they get to eat every day. I have seen government corruption that i hadn't imagined. (did you know that if you ship something to someone in haiti, they have to pay a "receiving fee" that might be three times what you paid for the shipping?) I have seen with my own eyes the desperation of extreme poverty, and the power born of hope and a little help. And yet, I'm worried that I will slip back into my old life, and old comforts, and my old whiney habits, and slowly the lose the impact of this trip.

On the other hand, I don't know what could or would be different about me. I suspect experiences like this need time to sink in and become wisdom. I only know that I have been touched, and I want to be changed.