As classes came to an end on the Friday before Spring Break began, it seemed as if everyone on campus was teeming with eagerness and anticipation about their plans for the upcoming week—everyone except me. I wasn’t going to be spending the next week partying with my best friends on a warm, tropical beach or relaxing at home surrounded by my family. I was going on an Alternative Spring Break service trip to the deserts of New Mexico with eleven other people who were basically strangers. I was not excited. Little did I know, however, the next eight days were going to change my life forever and teach me more than I could have ever imagined (and yes, I realize how cliché that sounds.)
Everything about my service trip surprised me in the most amazing ways. New Mexico is beautiful. Everywhere we looked, there were breath-taking views of red mesas and tall snow-capped mountains. Beauty seemed to be all around us, in nature and in the people we encountered.
My service trip taught me that what you have isn’t as important as we make it out to be. We spent the week volunteering on the Navajo Reservation in and around Thoreau, New Mexico through St. Bonaventure’s Indian School and Mission. Most of the people living on the reservation don’t have electricity in their homes and don’t have access to running water. The people we served were living with the bare minimum, in one of the richest countries in the world, but you would never know. Everyone we met was incredibly friendly, welcoming, and generous. We spent one day pouring the cement foundation for a Hogan, the traditional Navajo style home, so a woman and her family could move out of their trailer and into the Hogan. Despite the fact that we had brought our own food for lunch, the woman made us all lunch using her own food. It isn’t easy or cheap for her to get into town and buy food for her family, but she still used what little she had to provide us with a meal.
I also learned that families aren’t always formed through blood. Walking into the airport at 5:30am with a group of eleven strangers, I was terrified (and not just because I hate flying). I knew (or hoped) that I would become close with at least one or two members of my service trip team. I was not expecting to become unbelievably close with all of them. Sharing the same small trailer, doing the same laborious work, and reflecting on our days each night brought me closer with this group of eleven strangers than I could have ever imagined. By the end of the week, we were acting like a family, calling each other siblings and everything. We did some of the hardest, dirtiest work I’ve ever done, but I couldn’t have asked for a better team of people to be a part of.
The most important lesson I learned on my service trip is that life truly does begin at the end of your comfort zone. Did I ever picture myself hiking up a mountain 9,000 feet above sea level, cleaning out horse stalls for two hours, breaking up the concrete foundation of a house, or opening up to group of people I’d never met before? Heck, no. But am I glad I did it? Absolutely.
I learned more about myself, and life in general, in the seven days I spent in New Mexico with my service trip family than I ever dreamed I would. It seems so silly to me now that I doubted my decision to go on this trip. If the chance to go on a service trip ever arises, I encourage everyone to embrace the opportunity and see for yourself why this experience was so remarkable.
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