To start off I’ve gotta say sorry for the complete lack of
blogging in the last 4 months, wow! Somehow, when being down here in S.A. crossed
over from feeling like a “big trip” to feeling like my real life, the habit of
blogging every week faded out. But, for
those of you who followed us along our journey all year and are now wondering
where in the world we are, here’s what I am hoping is a better-late-than-never-update:
After a short, jam-packed 3 weeks at home in July, we
boarded the plane back to Quito, this time accompanied by 16 other people, all
members of my family’s church back home, University Lutheran. The 10 days we spent
together working at For His Children were nothing short of amazing. Seeing
everyone fall as in love with the kids as Renae and I had the year before was
incredible, and we got to re-live the excitement of experiencing Ecuador for
the first time all over again through them. We grew so much closer as a church community
and the fact that my parents and sister Anna were a part of that was especially
cool for me. It was sad to see them go after such a short time, but it felt
beyond normal to send them off back to the states while staying down here
ourselves. Back to the two scrubs working together, as usual without a plan as
to what would come next…
Luckily for us, the volunteer coordinator at FHC Jen
Schneider is beyond amazing, and welcomed us back to the orphanage once
everyone left. We only planned on passing through, but got sucked in by those
babies’ cute faces and a group of 4 awesome, college aged volunteers. Before we
knew it 2 weeks had passed, even though our original question to Jen was, “Can
we come stay for 1 night??” At the same time we found ourselves facing a
surprisingly hard decision: to keep travelling or to use our flight back to the
states that was coming up in a couple weeks? Both of us obviously wanted to
continue the adventure, but what we were working with was a small lack of
direction and a large lack of funds. We both felt called to go back to Cordoba,
Argentina to continue where we left off, but maybe it would be smarter to head
back to the states. We already had our 9 months to bop around, we didn’t really know how Cordoba round 2 would
go, and maybe it was time to just get a little more serious. You know, grad
school, a salaried job, boyfriends who spoke our same language, something like
that?
Or not. Instead of dwelling on it for too long, we decided
to trust our instincts, trust God, and were on a bus within a couple days. The
second we walked into the city after 5 surprisingly fast days on the bus (new record
for longest trip!), we knew we had made the right decision. I can’t quite
explain my love for that city, but it’s real. We moved back into our foreign
student house from before, met 6 more incredible, lifelong friends from all
over the world, and were settled in before we knew it. We got the opportunity
to teach an English class to a group of PhD biology students at the University,
which was great (not to mention VERY different from teaching 20 1st
graders), and best of all got to go back to the community center to see the
kids. I’m not kidding when I say I have had many
of my happiest moments on that basketball court, surrounded by some of the most
fun, loving, affectionate kids in the world. Being able to fulfill our promise
to them that we would come back some
day, and show them that they ARE worth it and ARE important to us alone was
worth all the money spent and all those days sitting on a bus. I have a feeling
that that group of kids will always be on my heart, and may have a lot to do
with what I decide to do with my life in the future.
The initial Cordoba plan was to find paying jobs so we could
post up there for another year or two, but after seeing just how bad the economy is right now we soon realized that just
wasn’t going to happen. Definitely disappointing, but it is something that is
out of our control, and at least we tried instead of always having to wonder
what might have been. So once we gave in to that we decided just to enjoy our 2
months there a.m.a.p. (as much as possible?), since it’s impossible to know
when we’ll be able to go back. We soaked up time with friends and with the
kids, went to see Argentinean films, cooked elaborate dinners with the roomies
every night (new sushi experts right here!), and got our fill of Mendoza wine. As
our landlord said when it was time for us to leave, “a lo menos nadie puede
decir que no vivieron esta vida”. “At least no one can say you didn’t live this
life.” How true. In a sense we were
heading home after a failure, without jobs, savings just about spent, but we
both felt the opposite was true. The people we met and the lessons we learned,
especially about taking a risk when you feel like it’s right, are priceless.
So here I am, back at FHC in Quito, about to hop on a plane
to North Dakota later tonight. I always said by the end of the trip I would
know what I wanted to do with my life, what was next. But guess what? I’m
farther from that than ever, and it feels really
good. The possibilities are endless, and while it can be the slightest bit
stressful not having an answer if you think about it too hard, it is mostly
just really exciting. Grad school is an option, so is finding a new group of
underprivileged kids to love up on back in the states. Or maybe we’ll just book
a ticket to the next country once we have enough money? I hear you can make
good money teaching English to refugees in the Middle East…
All I know is I feel like thee luckiest girl in the world to
have had this last year, and all the experiences it’s held. Like unexplainably
lucky. And although I think it’s going to be a very hard transition from a year
spent on the continent that has slowly become my home, I can’t wait to see what
comes next.
All my love,
Jenna Flynn