Friday, July 17, 2009

Babies

This is Week Two. We are doing a lot bilingually. We were finally able to open the pool on Wednesday. I was finally able to take a day off.

Peer group time, our first activity after breakfast, has required more of my attention than usual. We have only one baby for babysitting! But we have about 6 local teen volunteers. How to keep them engaged in the mission, that's been my challenge for that hour. We put four of them in the other peer groups as helpers, but I have had two very capable young volunteers each morning, asking how they can help. Yesterday, joking about it with a volunteer, I said, "They need to bring more babies next year!" Then we could just send all our teens to the lodge to help with babysitting, problem solved.

My day off was lovely, but I did keep noticing the time and wondering how things were going here. Once I got in the car for the two hour drive back to Trinita, my brain went full gear back into program mode. I realized that despite the fact that there are plenty of folks here who can handle whatever might come up, I still felt like... a mother who has left her child with a babysitter for the first time.

Really? Is this what that feels like? I think it is at least in that ballpark. I know Trinita is in good shape, in good health. I also know that the staff can carry on without me--they have before! Yet, I need to be there. I need to make sure all is well. Perhaps I am being overly-responsible. Or perhaps this is just the natural result of generativity. My very self is invested in this mission and especially in the summer program. It is my baby!

But like real babies, it takes more than one person to make one! We together are raising this child. A lot of people feel personally invested, or we wouldn't be able to pull this off. In 1984, as I scrubbed the men's showers in a spirit of utter contentment, I recognized this truth: you can't pay people to do what we are doing. If they were doing this for the money, it would change everything. You have to want to scrub the showers. You have to want to be a part of this mission and make it happen. Money can't buy a missionary spirit.

Like a mother raises her child for love and not because it pays well, we all need to find something that we feel that invested in, something we do out of love and not to pay bills. I know I am so very blessed to have that gift, the gift of generativity, as a Missionary Servant. And now, excuse me, peer group is over and I have to go scrub the showers. Or something.

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