I think the most meaningful experience from this trip has actually been coming back to Lafayette, which has made me realize how special the trip was. While I can try to explain to friends and family how awesome the trip was, in reality, only me and everyone I was involved with can understand the difference that the organization of Orphanage Outreach is making.
The people working with the organization are truly inspiring, and I have met noone like them here back in the States. While all of us in ASB are devoted to service, and enjoy and understand the importance of our trips, there is a rare number of indivuduals who have truly committed their entire lives to the importance of helping others. The individuals at Prphanage Outreach have done this, and our ASB team got the chance to be inspired by them and hopefully take a small part away with us to embreace as our own.
My new mission is to make others understand the work of others, and to give others a sense of the importance of service. Through this I can truly begin to ‘release the hero within’. That statement which is an orphange outreach staple, is really a great way to go about thinking of our service work, and also a huge standard to live up to. It is a standard however, even if seemably unattainable is worth trying to reach.
Now that I am back on campus, I am going to live life like my ultimate goal is to “release the hero within’ and remember that each small step we take towards helping others is a huge accomplishment.
I completely agree with all Chris has said. I knew going on this trip that i would have an amazing time, meet some amazing people, and do good things in a place that needs it. What i did not realize was how much it would change my perspective of things and the life i lead. I found myself stopping during many points of the trip to look around and truly realize what i was doing. One of Orphanage Outreach’s principles is “communicate love”. This was something i truly took to heart considering i was worried how far my high school spanish would take me when trying to communicate with these children. I was pleasantly surprised not only that my spanish seemed to come back, but how much a smile, a little bit of spanglish, and an open heart would get you.
It is inspiring to see these children spend their time in school learning english when they could be out playing with friends or doing whatever they please. Although at times it was hard the students truly want to learn and be in the school working with you. As Chris said it is hard to express what this trip has done for you. I can tell people what we did and show pictures of all the kids we worked with and the facilities we were in but in this case a picture may be worth a thousand words but those thousand words are not enough. If i can i truly hope to go back there some day, wether it is on another ASB trip or independently. That is truly how much this experience touched my life and with all the service i have done and trips i have gone on i have never been able to say that as much as i can about this trip.