essay #2

what is one thing you would change about your community?




I remember it either rained or drizzled every day of that week. I remember waking up sore every morning of that week. I also remember craving kimchi every night of that week. I remember finding awkward tan lines above my ankle bones from my brand new (now dirt brown with specks of white paint) red hi-top sneakers. Whenever I decide to wear my red sneakers today, I recall that week of July in New Mexico.

My mission team of seven students and two adults from our church youth group volunteered build a skate park at the Navajo Indian Reservation that week. Prior to that week, we trained by ingraining in ourselves the concept of stewardship and the art of sawing woodboards. We were told stories of alcoholic parents, abusive uncles, and abandoned children.

The first day of that week when we stumbled out of the van after a ten-hour drive, I could not help but contrast the immaculate streets of Irvine to Smith Lake’s unevenly paved streets and bullet-marked signs. Most of that week, I was a weed exterminator and painter. However, every now and then I glimpsed at what these children live through everyday.

Boys and girls aged ten to eighteen eagerly came to use the facility. Most of them did not even know how to ride skateboards and resorted to sitting on them and using the ramps as slides. I chatted – well, mostly listened - to a girl talk about the day she had before. She wore tattered, grass stained jeans and her long, straight hair down. She looked around eleven or twelve. Before I could even ask for her name she broke into a story about her brother. He had gotten so drunk the night before that he had done something which put him into jail. Her sister, now the mother of the family, "went crazy" upon hearing the news, probably worried about bailing him out. This little girl of around eleven or twelve delivered this story in such a stoic manner that I did not know how to respond. I simply nodded and added occasional "Oh-my-God’s” until she was picked up by a purple Oldsmobile.

My sixty-four year old aunt still thinks I went to Mexico. I gave up trying to correct her (No, it’s NEW Mexico, imo). When I tell my friends about my mission trip they assume I went to Africa or Haiti. My community thinks doing good can only start somewhere off this continent. My community thinks doing good is building houses or raising money. I want more people to join in this cause in New Mexico. Ultimately, it’s not building a skate park, it’s building the children and keeping them sane. I want my community to be receptive to opportunities in places near us that don’t get attention because they did not suffer a natural disaster. The purple Oldsmobile girl only needed me to listen.