No idea

I'm a lucky girl.  I always have been, and on some level I've always known it.  Even though I was small as a child, and not much has changed, it was never for lack of food.  Sometimes my parents and I fought, but I always knew they  loved me.  Once or twice through the years, I've had friends turn on me and leave me hurting, but new friends, better friends, have always risen up to take their place.  And most recently, I have found a man who genuinely loves me, something that still makes me want to pinch myself to make sure I haven't been dreaming.

Any time I take a moment to stop and just think about my life, I realize that I've got it pretty good.  These past two weeks I've been even more fortunate to be able to travel to two different countries.  First to Mexico, to the city of Juarez, as part of a team to build three houses for three different families, and then to the Dominican Republic, on a vacation earned through a year of hard work.

Juarez is a city known, first and foremost, for its crime.  When you mention where you are going, even strangers' eyes get wide as they warn you to be careful.  Its touching that they care, but I have no fear.  I believe my God will protect me, and even if he doesn't, well, I've heard the pearly gates are beautiful this time of year.  From the start, it is clear what kind of city Juarez is.  Poverty greets you just minutes inside the border.  Houses made from scrap lumber, pallets, old signs, and sheets are the norm.  To add to the effect, most of the neighborhood roads are not paved, and the sandy, dirty, bumpy roads only emphasizes the shock of the poverty.

Oddly enough, its the kind of place that feels like coming home. I'm not a skilled builder, I only speak a very broken Spanish, and I'm not good at making friends with strangers, but no matter how hectic my life is, or how directionless I feel, I always know that my time in Mexico is right. I don't get it, probably never will, but Mexico is in my blood.  Sometimes I think about taking a different mission trip, say to Africa perhaps, but then I end up thinking, "But then I couldn't go to Mexico this year" and quickly ditch the idea.  Like I said, its in the blood.

The Dominican, however, is different.  Or at least my experience was.  The DR is known as the wealthier of the two countries on the island of Hispaniola. The life expectancy is higher than Haiti, as is the literacy rate, and I would guess so is the tourists to citizens ratio.  I've never heard anyone say "Hey, you know, I think Haiti would be a great place to vacation."

The accommodations are considerably better than Juarez.  The toilets, for one, can handle toilet paper and you are allowed to flush them whenever you want.  The food is endless, and the scenery breathtaking.  The grounds of this hotel are immaculate and the rooms are, inexplicably, cleaned twice a day (if you aren't already in bed by the time round two comes along, that is).  The decor is stunning, like the Titanic, only the guests are wearing swimsuit and cover ups and not tuxes and ballgowns.  I usually get some amount of culture shock coming back into the overindulgence of the United States. This transition has left me overwhelmed.

Yesterday, however, we went on a tour that (finally!) let us leave our resort and I saw, from the back of a safari truck, how the people here live.  Many live off the land, and the land here is fruitful, so my guess is that many less here starve, but I have no proof.  The houses, on average, are bigger than those in Juarez and most look like they were intentionally built all at once and not over time as materials could be found.  Still, many children were barefoot and I don't think it was always by choice.

For some reason, as we were driving by I thought of some stats I had heard. To confirm them, I just did some math (and by math I mean that I found this)  Did you know that if you make $3,000, a year you are in the top 15% richest people in the world? That's approximately what I made the first year I filed taxes.  I was in High School.  If you make $48,000, you are in the top 1%.  Occupy Wall Street came to mind and I have to think; we have no idea what it means to be the 99%.  Even those of us who have thousands and thousands to go before we even make it to the top 5% have no idea.   I have no idea.

I visit and see the way the rest of the world lives for a time, do what I can and leave, hoping I changed a life.  Or start a revolution of love. But I'd be content with just one life.

Sometimes I hear of the lives changed by my team's actions and it still moves me to tears, but usually I just have to trust that something has been done.

This isn't necessarily a call to do something, because if you asked me how to change the world, I'd tell you, "I have no idea."

But I've been thinking about something that was said one night doing devotions in Mexico that went something like this.  "There is no reason that you had to be born into the United States (where, by the way, the poverty line puts you in the top 13% of people in the world)  Statistics would say you'd be way more likely to be poor.  So why did God put you here?  Why did he give you what you have?  What does he want you to do with it?"