Blog 27: Nathaniel

Hello. As this trip comes to a close, I am left with many questions. Our Lakeside leaders say that having questions is good even at the end of a journey like this. I definitely agree because how else will our thoughts linger with the families and community who are graciously hosted us for a whole month. How else will we still think about our growth over these weeks without the support of questions. While I agree that questions are crucial to continued growth and understanding, some questions plague me still. Questions about service. We have had the amazing opportunity, over the 4 weeks of this trip, to participate in various service projects in the community. For two weeks we taught three classes a day, English, French, and Math. After our mid-trip reflection in Fes, we ran soccer camps and continued our English classes. Finally in the last week, we have worked to create informational and thank-you videos for our local Anou-connected co-op. Throughout all these projects, we have been able to connect with kids from the village more than if we were just building bathrooms or filling potholes. But how do we know that teaching classes, running soccer camps, and making videos has more impact than service of the more manual labor variety? How can we see the impact? If we woke up early every day and filled potholes or built bathrooms etc., we would see, after a month of work, the quantifiable impact. The physical impact. But is our impact as tangible? I’ve spent many evenings reflecting on our impact, and I’ve come to a conclusion, as well as many more questions. The reason our impact isn’t as tangible is because it hasn’t stopped. Even after we leave, the marketing impact of the videos on the co-op will continue to grow. The English, French, and Math learning will hopefully open doors to new opportunities to learn more. Instead of planting trees that have already fully grown, we are planting seeds. Seeds that will continue to reach higher and higher and higher into the sky until it is time for the fully grown trees to plant seeds themselves and help those seeds learn and flourish. 


Now let’s finish off with some questions. How will we know if our impact will continue to grow once we’re gone? How do we know manual labor service wouldn’t have been more helpful? Why did I waste precious blog space on a metaphor that I don’t think really worked? All of these questions are good. All of these questions show we care. And maybe, someday, we will come back and learn the answers. Maybe we won’t, but that’s okay too.

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