Lessons for the Teacher

Greetings,

School as been keeping my nose to the grindstone and Lent has kept my candle lit.  Last week we were gifted with a SPRING BREAK WEEK!  A whole 7 days of time off...I took advantage of the time to visit my family and Sisters.  I enjoyed sleeping in, being a bit pampered by my mom, and simply spending time with my Sisters.  On the other hand, 24 of our junior and senior students with another 10 teacher & parent chaperones traveled to Mexico!

They packed for their Mexican Spring Break with old blue jeans, work gloves, mats & sleeping bags to soften the cement floor, and soccer balls.  These 24 high school students spent their break working between two impoverish villages on a mountainside.  They built two cement block houses, re-roofed several small houses with corrugated tin, and formed simple brick stoves.  They played soccer, duck-duck-goose, and other games with the children.  They traveled with 3 priests...and the people happily joined them for Mass every evening.  And they ate their weight in tortiallas, rice, and beans.

Yesterday, I asked those who had participated to share their experiences with their classmates.  These were some of the amazing lessons they taught us, lessons I couldn't have created...

* We should be grateful for everything we have.  'Cause everything we have is like a miracle for them.
* I thought I knew what 'poor' looked like, but I wasn't ready for how little they had.
* We should be happy, we've been blessed.

* I felt very close to Our Mother Mary while there.  We were surrounded by home shrines to Our Lady
   of Guadalupe and their devotion to her...she was very present to me while I was there.
* I want to find ways to give back here [in home city] too and not just wait for our trip next year.
* The saddest part was sharing our little toys with the kids and trying to make it 'fair and equal'
   between the kids, we just didn't have enough.

Blessings,