Your Pain Has Changed Me

When life gets going and we are in the middle of the daily grind it is easy to forget the things that have really hit home in our hearts sometimes. 

Last summer I went to Honduras with Heifer International and it changed my life.

I spent many months pondering, remembering, trying to keep helping, and reflecting on the events of that trip but as time has gone on, the experience has dulled a little just as many things do with time.

Until this week.

I am a teacher and I got to go to Honduras with the Study Tour because of the work we do in our 2nd grade with Heifer's programs and resources.  Each year our kids raise money for Heifer through an art gallery. 

We started teaching that unit again a few weeks ago and had our hunger banquet and introduction to Heifer this week.  It made me long for Honduras, for that life-changing experience again.  I started looking at my photos, reading my trip journal, and basking in the remembrance of those amazing people I shared that experience with.  Both the other Americans and the people we met in Honduras. As I was teaching my students about hunger and poverty, visions of those happy Hondurans flashed through my head and I got all kinds of choked up. 

My passion in life is changing poverty--all parts of poverty, education, hunger, homelessness, power, etc.  I have this heart that jumps every time think about humanitarian work.  My heart wants to swell right out of my chest when I think about how much good we can do for other people.  I feel even more joy when I see my students embody and truly understand the difference they can make by being charitable people. 

Like one of my students' parents said to me this week at our hunger banquet, "We really are in the high income group of the world.  We need to teach our kids to give, love, and do for others."

And we can.  We can truly make a difference. 

I want to make a difference and I just pray that someday I will feel like I have, even if only in a small simple way.