REFLECTIONS WRITTEN ON March 11, 2005, Punta Mona, Costa Rica

The students were asked to finish the phrase in a short paragraph, "This trip so far has. . . "

Jenn
This trip so far has been a time of learning, changing and deepening my relationships with the Lord and friends. My eyes have been opened to both positive and negative aspects of my own culture and this culture I am now experiencing. I have realized how materialistic and individualistic my own culture is and how opposite this new culture is. I have loved being in community with this group and the people I have met here in Central America. I have learned truly to appreciate the people in my life and what God has given me.

Katie
This trip so far has reaffirmed my love for community and it has inspired me to reach across boundaries to create community with those outside my normal circles. Through this value of community I have learned that I want to live simply and get out of my individualistic, materialistic, consumerism mindset that becomes my automatic instant gratification response to society when I really value relationships.

I value where I come from and the community around me; however, I have been challenged by that fact that CAFTA and farm subsidies may hurt the families I have come to love here, and that my love for the pesticide-using, mono-crop farms in my community damage the environment of which we are called to be good stewards.

I have been thinking about my faith and how I believe the church should be the one to demonstrate how we are to love our neighbors in the community as our own church members and how this is not happening.

I have learned that what I value and who I am do not coincide the majority of the time and I want to change this.

Emily
So many people we've met have thanked us for taking this trip, for coming to learn about their lives and our world. I realized that I have a responsibility to use my education for the good of others and for our world, not just to improve my own life.

Lora
Experiencing Central America has taught me a bit about independence and dependence. I'm not as independent as I once believed. All of my actions and decisions are possible because of people I don't know, who provide for me from around the world. On the other end of the scale, dependence is not all bad. Relationships are richer and more rewarding when I allow myself to be dependent on others, and vice versa.

Jacob
I have learned how my values are tied to my identity and through these values I make choices. All of my choices have consequences and by learning about my consequences I see some good and very bad things about who I am. My faith is too often influenced by my political, social and cultural values. This trip is teaching me to transfer my experiences into values, Christ-like values. Seeing my consequences has helped me see who I want to be.

Mark
So far this trip has almost rocked my face right off my head. So many values have been reformed. I am beginning to see that even the poorest of people are far more rich in joy than those who live a comfortable life. I have been challenged in my understanding of the value of stewardship. From here I can see all that I have been given, all the things which most take for granted, e.g. health, education, you name it (seriously, name it!). What are you doing with what you have been gifted? Are you keeping the gifts for yourself? What are you going to do about it?

Bethany
This trip so far has caused me to consider the choices I make each day. God is opening my eyes to the fact that my actions affect a lot more than just my life. I am being challenged to live in a way that truly reflects my faith and values.

Teranne
This trip for me has been a lesson in the two greatest commandments: to love God and to love others. My relationship with God has been broadened as I see Him work and in relationship fully with people here on all different sides of history. My view of others has also been revitalized and refined as I experience the oneness of this world, the interconnectedness of my family back in the States with my host families here. We aren't living on different planets or in different lifetimes; we're all living in the same house. So how are we going to live together, loving one another? Is one member of the family isolated in the garden, another sewing clothes, while some just play games? Is one sister starving and another not? And the environment - it's not only here for my viewing and recreational pleasure. It was created for its own merit and I am fully dependent on it for survival. To live fully with God, for God, means to live in loving, pure relationships with all others and with creation. If I don't, I'm only living for myself and falling short of who I was created to be.

Kirk
I have been challenged on this trip by a sense of joy. I have encountered it in very positive forms (like Piedras Negras) and in negative forms (like Punta Mona). These experiences have brought my prior values into a contradictory or paradoxical relationship, rubbed off their dull edges, and sharpened me. I desire a deeper relationship with Christ, because he is the source of all my values.

Mike
The people we call "poor", "oppressed", "other", or "our neighbors" are not a nameless mass as most of us perceive them to be. I've seen their faces. They've taught me how I can follow Christ without letting my culture or my "needs" get in the way. I used to think that I was closing the gap between my beliefs and my actions, but I was wrong. Now that I've seen the problems in my life and in the lives of others, and that these problems can be fixed, there is no excuse left not to change my life.

Hannah
Living amongst poverty has opened my eyes to how much I have -- both materially and opportunity-wise. I want to live my life more intentionally, so that I am not spending and consuming more than I need. I see how far $10 goes down here and it's embarrassing to think of how thoughtlessly I can spend it back home on very unproductive things. Instead of living in excess, I want constantly to be reminded of the many people who have touched my life here so that I can make decisions that will honor God and serve others.

Molly
This trip so far has torn my heart, taught me to question, challenged my faith, strengthened my hope, racked my brain, slowed me down, revealed my responsibility and has provided a will to find a way to change it all.

Katey
Everyday I can ask myself, what is Dania, my 9-year old, side pony-tailed, malnourished, coffee- picking, friend doing right now?

The U.S. is not a separate planet, but that is often how we treat it. Living in Central America has flipped my whole world upside down as we witness immense poverty but also profound gratitude and joy for life. I have learned that living with less is liberating. The colors in nature don't clash, why can't my clothes? The price of a Starbucks drink could feed a family for a week. It has put a face to the way I want to think, act, and live.

Laura
As I have had the opportunity to share the lives of Central Americans and listen to their stories of the struggles they daily face -- whether due to corrupt political leaders who rob the people, maquilas that exploit the poor, or the struggles with poverty that are a reality for so much of the population -- I have been challenged to "think" less and identify more with their lives. At times this has meant feeling a deep lament for every unjust political, social & economic system. I have also had to think more deeply about the ways in which I ignorantly (and otherwise) contribute to the systems of injustice and what, more specifically, is my subsequent responsibility with this knowledge? Intertwined within the pain and injustice I have seen, have been unbreakable chords of beauty -- joy within the hearts of so many here who have opened up their lives to this small band of students passing through their lives.

Allison
Sitting beneath a thatched roof of a pavilion and listening to the constant crash of the Atlantic Ocean waves, I try to put words to an unfinished experience that entangles faces, personalities, faiths and Central American hearts. The realities of life I have seen are wrenching of the spirit, yet abundant with hope. This paradox is found everywhere, and gives us all a bond to encourage and work with one another towards that hope we have been given and I have seen here in Central America, that is rooted in our universal living God.

Crystal
This trip so far has been a way for me to realize how valuable community is, not only in our group but in the people of Central America. I see how good and healthy relationships are important for happiness in everybody's lives.

Katie
Living in Central America has drawn out the value of living simply, and constantly living in the tensions that this brings. We have strayed so far from the way God created us to live in community with each other, and I want to seek this out. The life Christ has called us to live is so rich, but full of tensions we need to live in, in order to draw closer to Him. I live the simple life, embrace community, and seek out and relish the tensions that cause us to grow!

Ryan
So far, this trip has had a profound effect on all of our individual lives. Personally, God has used many of these experiences to shape my faith. My experiences in Honduras with a campesino family helped me realize how self-centered I had lived. Seeing the coffee farmers make next to nothing to support their families, while I can buy coffee in the States for a buck cheaper made me think about how I function as a consumer. Observing the political and social paralysis in Nicaragua and Honduras made me think how my political decisions affect the million who are suffering in these countries. In sum, my experiences in Central America are changing and critiquing my values, which I hope will be reflected in my actions as I continue to live life as a child of God within whatever context I find myself in the future.

Danielle
In these months I have known what it means to really live. This did not come for me at the luscious beach of Punta Mona where food, dancing and nature are in abundance. Rather, life came for me as I sat in the home of a widowed Honduran woman with five malnourished children and no income as she fed me bananas from her tree and eggs from her chickens. True life is in being with those who are suffering just as Christ did, and it is the joy of that being that I seek and value.

Yori
I'm learning that poverty is the absence of the ability to tap into the most pure, high, and sacred, because that alone gives us a real life. Tapping in is like Jesus' prayer time, where our spirits fly and all is light. But Jesus did not spend his life in the sacred light of prayer -- he walked out into the deepest darkness and there he lived and there he shone. Now I just wonder -- where is the deepest darkness for me? It pains me to go but I know I do not walk alone and it is my compañeros who make it worth the while.

Clinton
This trip has shown me the importance of mindfulness: who am I affecting when I buy ______? Is this banana from a plantation that is destroying nature and the dignity of the men who work there for less than a dollar a day? Is my vote going to have an impact on people across the globe? Who does our country really serve and care about? What social class has the power, and what social class do they serve? And what can I do to change the injustices that I inevitably find when I am mindful of how the world works?

Jon
I'm learning a lot about stewardship. Before, I understood it as taking care of and utilizing my personal property and gifts, talents, etc. My view of stewardship now is expanding to include communal property as well as the earth, the environment, etc. These things have been entrusted to us as well. We need to take care of those in our community too. We are a gift to each other. I'm thinking a lot about taking care of the poor, the oppressed and those who lack opportunity for education.

Aaron
If you have eyes to see and ears to hear, you will understand this truth. The truth is out there and those who seek it shall be set free. How will life be spent? Who will be glorified, what shalom will be done? Who will be hurt out of ignorance, and what harm will be done because of complacency? Seek and you shall find -- there is so much more.

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