A Bowl of Mashed Up Corn

As I mentioned in my first post, I had the opportunity to travel to El Salvador two weeks ago. Although keeping a journal has been a task I have aspired to since I was 12, to this day I struggle with being intentional about it. I considered that this trip to Central America with 7 of my nursing classmates may quite possibly be something worth writing about. I happened to be correct in this assumption, and I sit here now--once again inside my favorite coffee shop on Barstow Avenue--and I reread some of the pages. I don't think I can say it better than I did two Sundays ago.

"When we were doing introductions yesterday at our meeting with Sister Peggy at Centro Arta para la Pez, she asked us what our "rebirth" in life was. Honestly, my rebirth was yesterday. When my head and my heart are in the right place, I slow down, and I ask God to show me the path he has paved for my life. Sometimes I get frustrated and impatient, trying to plan my steps on my own. 

But yesterday, yesterday I found God in the wrinkles of a nun from New Jersey; I found Him in the fingers of an 8-year-old boy from Suchitoto, who, after playing guitar for one day a week for 3 months, played for us a song that became an instantaneous incubator for my heart. 

I found him in a bowl of mashed up corn, and I saw Him in the faces of the teenagers who handed me a ball of it, politely taught me how not to mess up the most important phase of a tortilla, and nodded when I asked them, "Esta bien!?" 

I felt Him through the embrace of a woman I barely know, but respect with every ounce of my being, who believes in every human being, is lovingly referred to as "Abuela" by the children she takes in, and believes in a world that is beautiful, even though I know the deaths of her husband and 2 sons will be memories she takes to bed with her every single night. 

I found Him in my friends, who I shared yesterday with, who I'll be forever connected to through these experiences. I found Him everywhere, and I'll never be able to put that feeling onto this piece of paper, but quite honestly, even if I could, I wouldn't. 

So many times we ask but how often do we listen? I'm listening, and I know that this is a place God wants me to return to. These are the people who will change my life even more than I will change theirs. I don't know when I'll be back, or if it will be physically or spiritually, but I do know one thing, that a piece of my heart, a piece of my soul, will remain forever in El Salvador."