My Mission Trip: Healing of the Soul

"The soul is healed by being with children."
It's been about a year since I returned from my mission trip in Kingston, Jamaica and I am still learning from the kids I met there. Everyday something happens that reminds me of the gift that I received for those 11 days. This blog post is a confirmation and a personal tail of the truth of this quote. 
When I was in Kingston, the other HG students and I held a VBS for the children in the community every day. The place where we held the VBS was also where we ate all of our meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were eaten at the school in the community. This school was right across from the living areas in the town.

This is the classroom adjacent to the one we ate in. 

Every morning we would wake up and take our Caribbean Lifetime Missions bus to the school for breakfast. The VBS started at the same time everyday two hours after we arrived to eat breakfast. One very important thing about the school we went to was that it was completely surrounded by a huge gate. In order to get to the school grounds you had to have someone unlock the gate. 

The Side of our bus!!

No matter how tired I was in the morning everything always changed the second our bus drove around the corner in view of the school and the place where the kids lived. It was an amazing thing, something I can barely even explain the feeling of. But, I shall try! Every single day when our bus came around that corner 25-50 children came running toward us. They screamed and smiled and waved and just stood around hoping to catch our eye to get us to wave at them, to smile and acknowledge their presence. These children did this everyday. They knew they couldn't talk to us yet, that when the bus drove through the gates it would close and they would be kept out, but they did it anyway. Every. single. day. 

Some of the girls that came everyday! Cierra, Bianca, Banca, Strawberry and Ashanti.

Once we had gotten inside the kids would stand at the gate and wait, some of them would go around the other side of the building where the windows to the room we ate in were and they would call to us. During the VBS we taught them a dance to a gospel rap song and in the last few days the little girls would stand outside the gate and do the dances for us, calling out the different phrases and things we had used to help them remember. "Run run run, push push push!" They would yell. 
It was an amazing thing, 80-100+ kids came to VBS everyday. These kids came on their own, their parents didn't drive them and force them to attend they came at their own will, bringing with them friends and siblings. The kids came excited to learn about Christ to hear what we had to say and to truly spend time with us, whether it was with games, dances, Bible studies or skits... they came. 

Banca and Ashanti! 

Despite the fact that there were so many kids there, one girl truly left a mark on my heart. Her name was Ashanti, she was a beautiful young girl who from the first day attached herself to my hip and didn't let go. I was blessed to spend those days getting to know Ashanti, spending time with her through dancing, reading the Bible, learning the women's step, or simply just talking. 

Video I made after the trip =]

On our last day in Kingston, we told the kids that we were leaving. When I say it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I am not exaggerating. I know that in the same way that those children brought joy to me every time our bus turned that corner, we brought joy to them as well. The look in those kids eyes was something I will never forget. After the VBS the kids had to leave the school grounds and the gate was closed behind them. But even after they had left the school they stayed, just waiting and holding our hands through the fence. 


Each child had something that they wanted us to know, something to tell us before we left, some wanted our phone numbers, or our addresses despite the fact that most of them didn't have phones or addresses themselves. Just as I was getting ready to walk away from the gate and get on the bus to head back to where we were staying, Ashanti called to me. She asked me to kneel down to her and rather than call out what she had to say as the other children had, she whispered in my ear. She said "Promise me that you will never forget me." These were her exact words. 

Ashanti 

I can't even tell you how fast the tears came, little did she know that it would be impossible for me to forget her. That she had changed my life in ways I never imagined one child would. Now, this is the longest story I have ever posted so I will stop here. But those kids changed my life, forgetting them would be impossible, I fell in love with each and every one of them the first time they came running when that bus turned the corner. And in the same way that  Ashanti attached herself to my hip, each one of them attached to my heart and will always have a place there.