The Little Flag Tree

Just a few weeks ago, coffee in hand, we began the short ten minute walk to Casa de Los Preciosos, for what would be our last session there, marking the end of our first week in Bolivia. Los Preciosos is an orphanage for kids with special needs. As we made this walk it was eerily silent as we all reflected on the last week with heavy hearts that knew we would soon already be saying our goodbyes. We fell hard for these kids, which has happened so many times this year already, but not quite like this.

As we shuffled down the dirt path alongside the road that makes up our journey each morning and afternoon, I looked down and noticed the red stripes and blue star covered canvas poking out beneath some of the dirt. One thing I’ve noticed no matter where we go, is that the United States flag is printed on everything, everywhere. Tshirts, banners, pens, balls…you name it. This day, it happened to be on one of the little tree air fresheners you hang over your rear view mirror. I’ve seen them many times, but this time in particular it caught my eye for a different reason. What normally serves as a sweet reminder of home, suddenly put a knot in my stomach.

They told us month nine and ten would be the hardest, being so close to home, yet still so far. They told us we’d be tempted to call it quits early and head back to that place of comfort. But while the idea of that does sound so much easier than some of our realities here, I’ve realized more and more that even as much as I love all the people in that place, as the days go on, the less I want to go back and the more I want to stay.

The more I reflect on our impending journey home, the more I realize how different America seems to me than the one I once knew. Today, the thought of America feels as dirty and faded as that little tree was.

As I say this, please don’t get me wrong, I love America. I really do, with every piece of my heart. I was born and raised there and feel beyond blessed to have done so. I love baseball (#ForeverRoyal), and BBQ, and sweet tea, and Superbowl Sunday, and days spent out on the lake with family, and especially some country music. I’ll go wild for some red white and blue and throw the biggest of celebrations for the Fourth of July. I can spout off the Pledge of Allegiance in my sleep and sing every word of the National Anthem at the drop of a hat (and have even done so once when prompted by a tourist cop outside a McDonald’s in Thailand lol). I also am so insanely proud and grateful for all of my friends and family that have risked their lives in the fight for our country, and the beautiful freedoms we enjoy because of them. But these things I love so dearly, just don’t look the same these days.

I don’t know what it is about having your heart spread out over four different continents, but nothing about the world ever really looks the same after it. I think my mom said it so well at PVT when, teary eyed, she said, “I thought our job in America was to protect and provide for ‘our’ people. Why would we travel halfway around the world to help people or be sending money and supplies to other countries when there are people right in our own backyard who need help? That was, until I met a six year old street boy in the Philippines, and spent the day helping him pull rebar from the rubble of a wall we were helping to tear down, so that he could resell it in hopes of being able to afford his next meal. I realized in that moment that that little boy is no less ‘my people’ than any other kid in need back home in the States. These ARE our people. Because they’re God’s people. And this, too, is our backyard.” This is such a hard thing to admit that we so often think, but I think it’s safe to say that my mom and I aren’t the only ones who have spent countless years of our lives with this misleading mindset.

America is freedom, but it’s also immense privilege. A privilege that makes my chest feel heavy and my words seem like not enough, because I’ve seen it through the lens of lives all over the world. And I don’t deserve it. I’ve done absolutely nothing in my life that makes me worthy of the freedoms and rights and richness of safety and community and family that I have. I did nothing to deserve for hundreds of people, many who I barely even know, to donate thousands of dollars for me to travel all over the world.

And each moment out here, I’m more and more rawly aware of it. That I get to go back to that place. Of each life in my wake, that I’ve left behind. Of the three year old hand I would hold daily during prayer in Cote d’Ivoire because she wouldn’t go to anyone else and would cause too much trouble when left alone. Of each of my tiny students making up my class in Ghana. Of my refugee kids, that had already seen more horror in their little lives than most of us will in a lifetime. Of the Pakistanian family who took us in and fed us, even though they can barely put food on the table for themselves because their dad was severely electrocuted on the job and hasn’t been able to work in months. Of the kids who hike miles through the jungle each day just to get to school, even knowing that they probably won’t ever get to finish their education because if anything happens they’ll be next in line to have to drop out and find a way to make money for their family, but still do their best for as long as they can there anyway. For the girls in the girls home who have been hurt by men and drugs and their families in ways most of us can’t even begin to imagine but are still fighting to make a better life for themselves. For every host family that we got the opportunity to be a part of that stopped their lives and took us in to show us a part of their world.

When we go home, we leave them all behind. Hopefully feeling a little more loved and with a lot more Jesus in their hearts (and I’m not at all discounting the immense power of that either), but still, physically, right where we found them. And it hurts. It hurts in ways I can’t even compare. And it feels dirty to come home to our large abundances of material things and conveniences.

So family, friends, please know that we are SO very excited to see you, and feel blessed beyond measure to be coming home to the safety and security that your arms hold. But please also understand that in doing so, our hearts are so very raw for those we leave behind. Please tread this new season with us gently.