I was fifteen and it was summer. Except not an American summer, like all others I had experienced. I was shoveling gravel, poorly attempting to play soccer with locals, and swimming in waterfalls with my clothes on. With a group of almost thirty other teens my age, and the occasional supervising adult, we traveled to rural Costa Rica for a mission trip. During those two weeks, I kept a journal. I recently rediscovered this notebook, royal blue with the words "Stay Calm and Pray On," carved into the cover (I'm not joking), and began a conversation with myself. What started as quick page flipping and laughter at my embarrassingly poor spelling, became deeper reflection of my growth into the adult I am now and how I'm really not so different from the fifteen year old on the other side of the pages.
When you're fifteen, everything makes you horribly nervous. Or at least it did for me. In fact, I was an exceptionally insecure fifteen year old who second-guessed the majority of my decisions. This was something my parents dutifully noticed as something "holding me back," even though I considered it an intricate aspect of my introverted nature. While being an introvert is wonderful, branching out from the comfort of my bookshelves at home became an extremely influential decision in my young life, and one that was pretty damn fun. Goodness gracious was I more dramatic than I ever realized. By the end of the trip, I remember being less diligent with my documenting, but the majority of my experience is locked away in that scrappy notebooks' pages; fragments of my first overseas excursion without my family, and primarily with strangers.
I had one friend on the trip. At the time, without her there, I don't think I would have considered going on the mission trip at all. I was a shy Freshman that hated making small talk and loved reading. Okay, so that's me now as an adult too, but I like to think I've since improved my social confidence. Like most of my memories, I remember what book I was reading at the time (Tender is the Night by the KING F. Scott Fitzgerald) and was genuinely excited to have a lengthy flight ahead so I could dive into my new book. I even wrote about it in my journal. Proof! The things our brains choose to remember are selective and peculiar. I was fully aware of the intention of the trip, and understood the value of the work I would be doing, but somehow along the way, my teenage insecurities resurfaced. Even in a different country I couldn't escape the pressures of being in high school.
One evening we were challenged to a game of soccer by some of the locals across the street from our small base camp of multi-person housing and extraordinarily friendly hosts. I wrote, "The game starts and I feel so lost and awkward...I wanted to have fun. Really, I did... I had touched the ball a few times, but not made any impact or contribution whatsoever. I felt like I didn't belong."
Even though I was ultimately left feeling pretty embarrassed from my lack of athleticism, amassing the courage to participate in something like this would have been out of the question back home.
Not long after this entry, there was an entry about a boy. I was embarking on a wonderful adventure, overseas without my parents for the first time and what was on my mind? A. Boy. There was a dude on this trip that I had been blushing over for years, and I wrote about "some guy" that made conversation with me after hearing me play my ukulele on the front porch with girls I was sharing a room with. It's like I was trying to play it discrete, thinking that if anyone found my notebook, they wouldn't know who I was talking about or would think I wasn't absolutely bursting over our interaction. Like I said, I had a flare for the dramatic. But what would a trip overseas with a bunch of hormonally throbbing teenagers be without some wistful romance? While none of my Costa Rican love scenarios came to fruition, the fact that I spent three pages writing about this, reveals a lot about where my head space was initially at; a realization of just how much I have matured since then, when I thought I knew everything.
While I will continue to claim into my adulthood that I don't know much of anything, there was a particular moment that changed a lot of things for me, and ultimately influenced the way I perceive traveling as an adult. We were invited into the home of the pastor of a church we were spending the day working with.The conditions of his home were unlike anything I'd been exposed to before. "His garage and kitchen were conjoined into one room and upstairs was one large room that all four members of the house shared. But no one seemed to mind, because he was giving his all for the church he created." Afterwards, we visited the church, practically underground and begging to be appreciated. I remember little about its appearance apart from the light pouring in from the few windows, and the mass of children that squeezed inside, impatient for food. I wrote: "...around 40 to 50 kids showed up with their bowls and cups at the ready to receive possibly their only meal of the day." I remember wanting to give them more. Of anything. This community, and their children, radiated a rare and audacious hope for life that I had never witnessed before. We played with the children for the rest of the afternoon and I recognized that God's hand felt like the tiny ones that reached for mine. I wish I had documented more, and especially wish to have taken more pictures.
I was the most confident version of myself under those circumstances; an introvert turned conversational. Even if it was in a different language sometimes. I felt like I was a part of something important and valuable, and much bigger than my small, teenage universe. Understandably so, traveling can make some people more anxious. With me, however, it seemed to help my anxiety, even when I was young. My perceptions of the world were expanded far past the worries and fears that existed within my own mind. Sure, there are bad things that happen in the world, but there is just as much good, if not more, to be experienced if you give yourself the opportunity. I felt an overwhelming sense of grace and gratitude.
This is the same feeling that comes with pursuing things I love. I was only beginning to understand the deep, irreplaceable impact that traveling would have on my life. A part of me opens up that I generally close off in day to day surroundings. Of course, I wasn't fully aware of this at the time. I was just having fun with new-found friends and trying to do my part at contributing to the community that had welcomed us with open arms. While reading about those experiences, eight years later, I've realized that the things I love still make me feel like that nervous high-schooler; full of hope, full of new vivacity, and simply becoming a person I loved. Whatever it is that makes you feel this way, chase it and then embody it until you've completely embraced what makes you feel filled and complete.
Maybe fifteen-year-old me did know something after all.
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