Thought for the week: What’s your destination?

Have you ever thought about that question?  It often comes up when one is planning a trip or a vacation somewhere.

But sometimes, we need to go deeper and ask ourselves the question, “what is our inner destination?”

Kyi Aung San Suu once said:  “We will surely get to our destination if we join hands.”

And I also recently read this online, from Maryedna Yamber:  “Life’s Journey…It’s not about the destination, it is about the journey. It is the life we live before we die that matters. It is the little things we do for one another that in the end mean the most.”

Over and over again,  during the past two weeks when we were in Nicaragua serving the poor, I heard missioner after missioner express their amazement at how joyful the poor are, or how generous they are or how committed to faith, family and friends they are.

I sat in meetings where I grew angry when learning about how corrupt government officials in Nica, once again depleted funds for medicines so the poor suffer and die needlessly…yet vowing that their corruption would not deter us from serving those in great need.

I sat and talked to the lone sister who survived a horrific accident when she and her two sisters were struck by a drunk driver and I was so aware of the deep sadness in her eyes, yet she expressed deep gratitude to those in the Mission who helped her survive the last two years. She’s now desperate because she’s facing more risky back and foot surgery which she hopes will allow her to walk without pain.

I watched as new missioners met their sponsored child for the very first time and noticed how that initial awkwardness when meeting, quickly turned into hugs of hope!

I listened as Nicaraguan children expressed their gratitude for the opportunity to eat, or learn from lab in a box program, or received Day kits for girls, or got a book to read.  I listened as new missioners often struggled to find words to express what they’d just seen or experienced on a given day- and as it slowly dawned on them just how blessed their/our lives are and how we must never take that for granted.

I cried as water tanks at schools became operational because of Mission donors, and I cried again as HIV positive children struggled to find the strength to take a swing at a pinata which the Mission provided.  I cried, yet again, when I learned about 50 “at risk” children in one of the villages where we sponsor an orphanage.  These children are sexually or physically abused and we were asked to see how we could help get them in school and provide food and safety for them.  And I choked back tears when I visited a family in a dirt floor hut of two rooms, where the grandmother took in 3 young boys abandoned by their mother.

Life’s journey?  The destination?  The need to join hands as a human community seems to me, to be the only way, we will ever maximize our human potential and be at peace with where we find ourselves on this journey we call LIFE.  Indeed, it is about the life we live before we die…and it’s about all the myriad ways we join hands with others.

Let us pray that we will all strive to be a positive link in the human journey of life and hope.  Isn’t it this journey that is truly the foreshadowing of what our final destination will be?

Live and be HOPE this week!

Sr. Debbie Blow, OP