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Sometime last week, I was asked by a 9 year old, “Where do you live?” Seems like a straightforward question with an answer I wouldn’t have to think about before answering. But I had to stop and really question myself… My community, friends, and family are based in the US, but I’m spending most of the year in Guatemala with all of the kids. When I am in Guatemala, home is the US. And when I’m in the US? Guatemala. I responded “I live here and in the US. Both of them.”

Home. Throughout the years, the definition of that word has changed based on my location or stage of life (grade school, college, and “adult life”).

Home, to me, doesn’t just signify the building or room in which I live, but the community I am a part of. Friends I have. People I can pour into and that can pour into me. A relationship based community, with sharing, encouraging, and togetherness.

If I were to be asked what the most difficult part is of living with 91 kids, it would definitely be the lack of community in my life. I am constantly surrounded by kids asking questions, seeking guidance, and recovering emotionally from what their past held. I rarely have a person or a group of people pouring into me and I in them equally. No one to drag to a movie, no one to share dinner with, no one to simply enjoy being in each others’ presence with, while we are journaling or reading together. I am often the one pouring from my cup, participating in activities and conversations the kids want to share together. I guess that’s what I signed up for, right?!

I’m trying to view my community differently. We do not currently have a campus pastor, and I’ve been praying on how I can assist in this gap. In the next few weeks, I will be sharing devotions with the younger boys and girls house once a week after they finish school and dinner for the day. This will include a short video, followed by questions and a memory verse. I will take the time to notice needs and fill them, if and/or when I can. I will be getting more involved with worship. Through our weekly therapy groups, we do praise and worship before getting involved in our activities. This praise and worship may be accompanied with hand motions, dances, twirling scarves, and a guitar. I’m often standing alongside the kids leading and participating in the motions, but I want to start bringing my ukulele along to pour into the kids more, and hopefully getting worship involved not only in therapy group but also into the houses (maybe with my devotionals, if the kids are up for it?!).

I guess in a way, I am surrounded by the best community. I’m surrounded by company at every meal I eat. I am often annoyed (playfully) while at work, because a few of them are curios to learn about whatever is currently on my computer screen. I get a chance to follow up with them after school everyday to see how their day went and what they learned. I get to take part in rolling cars down the hill, passing soccer balls, jumping rope, and flicking marbles into a triangle (still not completely sure of their rules!). I can sit down with a child and write out the words they say to me, to later copy my letters in their own writing to send to their sponsors, assisting in developing skills of learning how to write and match letters with their sounds. But, I do need to make more notice of what the kids are in a way teaching me, not in conversation but through example. Kindness, giving, selflessness, caring for one another, including others, imagination, looking to the positive, joy, unconditional love, and much, much more.

It’s almost like I am a small part of two environments or communities, without actually being fully in one. I almost feel slightly uncomfortable in both, feeling as if I am missing out on one if I am in the other. When I am in Guatemala, I love video chatting with friends and family back home. But when I’m in the States, all I can think about are my kids back home. I guess we weren’t created to be comfortable in our earthly home, but to set our focus on our eternal home, where everyone we love and care for will be reunited together in one community.

“So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:18