Dignity of Simplicity

Today was one of the most rewarding days yet.  As we ventured back to La Carpio to continue our service work in this village that was built from the ground up by those who reside there, we were able to see the completion of the sidewalk we paved the day before for a family that had a child who needed accessibility via a wheelchair and we continued with our other paving project.  Today seemed to be a bit more intense for us as many were sore from the day before.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to complete our work due to a power outage that hit the area.  The fortunate thing from this was we were able to interact even more with the residents and their children.  Some of our students interacted with the children in a game of soccer, used their Spanish to communicate and exchange their names and just enjoy one another to name a few.  Before we headed back to San Jose, we were able to provide a love offering to their community to assist with the continuation of the project we had started.  We allowed several of our students to present this on behalf of our group in Spanish.  Then several representatives of the community shared their gratitude and appreciation for all that we did for their community.  They also wanted to hear from each of us; what our names were and what we thought about our experience over the last 2 days.  This was a very heartfelt experience for our group to truly share how they felt about their time in La Carpio.  The response that we received from the residents was filled with sincere love.  As a thanks to us, the residents surprised us with 2 homemade cakes, a nice sign with a blessing for a safe return and a pinata to celebrate our efforts.  We were so overwhelmed by their thoughtfulness and deep appreciation.  I truly believe this was an eye opening experience for our kids to see how much of a blessing we were to people that are so humble, have a true sense of community, hardworking and grateful despite having very little.  It truly was a testament to the dignity they have in living a life focused on what truly matters (love, family, togetherness, support, hard work, etc.) and not centered on material things and what others think and more importnatly what it really means to survive.  To end the day, the local children were so intrigued by our cameras that they took many pictures with us and of us, gave us hugs and walked us back to our vans before we departed.  They were so happy to have us their and more importantly we were able to provide them one step closer to a better quality of life.  We will miss you La Carpio and your presence will always be in our hearts.  Mejores deseos~