I have variously described day one of a team’s schedule as Tourist Day, Question Day, and Forest Gump Day (“So I went to the Basilica… again”). This time around it has been more like Reminiscing Day. Caroline and I started talking early this morning on our walk to the hostel about all the Sewanee teams we have hosted together. We ate breakfast at El Descanso and I remembered all the people who have run this place over the years. I stood in the balcony of the Basilica sanctuary and thought of all the groups whose photos I’ve taken in front of the strained glass window. A woman there with her family even saw me taking pictures and said out loud “that guy looks like he knows what he’s doing,” and asked me to photograph them (which brought me back 11 years to Sarah Miller telling me how we’d all end up professional photographers by the end of that summer). As we gazed out over the city from the walkway under the tower I remembered how I felt the first time up that ladder (and how much out of my depth I felt most of my first summer as a host).
As we walked down the Via de Siete Cruces, Roberto and I were talking about the streets that are now closed to vehicle traffic. That happened sometime last year, either before I was here in March or before I was here over the summer. And as I tried to sort those out in my mind, I remarked to him how strange it was that I was just here eight months ago.
There have been plenty of moments over the last twelve years when I have been sad about all the people who used to be here that have gone back to live in the US or elsewhere. Or when I miss how things used to be when you didn’t have to wear seatbelts and could cram 19 people in a Chevy Suburban and didn’t have to stop at red lights after dark. Or I think about a restaurant that used to be somewhere, or the good old days when the Strawberry Soda had real sugar in it and they still made the spicy Doritos in the black bag.
But then I walk into the youth world office and run into a group of people I mostly met and got to know within the last twelve months and they’re so excited to see me that we wind up with this:
really And thinking through the changes I’ve seen I have to remind myself that so much here really I s the same. And so much of the change has been for the better. But either way, I’ve gotten to experience it with so many people. I can’t possibly tell my teams about all the different times I’ve been to the Basilica and Plaza San Francisco anymore. There’s not enough time to give them every bit of history and experience that I’ve gotten at each of those places. But I get to think about parejas who I’ve learned from, and students I’ve brought to share my beloved country with, and teams who have asked me questions, and leaders who many times had no idea of how much their personality would make or break a team. I smile thinking about Sarah and Amalia and Deborah and Jóse Luís and Kelsey and Dana and Darío and Emma and Gavriella and Joe and Julie and Marina all being with me at each of these places. But now I get to introduce a people and a place and an experience and a philosophy of mission to another new group of friends, who will go in twelve different directions nine days from now, into whatever and wherever God calls them in the post-field. And hopefully by then all of us will be changed.
Bienvenido mi querido Danny