(no subject)
UGA Honors Application Essay-- Also relates to my mission trip thingy that I did a week ago
The experience which I am about to relate does not contain great tales or deeds about myself, nor any famous, world- renown work. This is because most heroes are recognized because of the great deeds they did that drastically changed the entire globe in some physical aspect. However, the heroes I found were not great Hercules or leaders of armies or a powerful country. They were simply Brothers of the Missionaries of the Poor, dedicated to serving the seemingly lowliest of humanity. They did not advertise their acts, nor were they constantly bombarded by the media while on their way to large conventions or other public showings. Rather they worked in places where the invisibles of society reside. They worked even in places one might not suspect they would be needed.
“Oh, you’re going to Jamaica?” my friends would ask, their mouths shaped in envious o’s. Usually one thinks of Jamaica as a tropical paradise with white beaches and sapphire waters. It hardly seemed a place where poverty abounded or where any trauma beyond a sunburn would occur.
“Yes, I’m going there on a mission trip,” I’d reply.
“Oh,” Their faces would fall and tongues stumble, trying to say the right thing, “Well that’s… different.”
I myself was rather blasé about the mission trip down to Jamaica. Having spent a good amount of time traveling during my gap year as well as volunteering at a nearby hospital, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. All I knew was that the shelters were run by Missionaries of the Poor in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica and the trip was supposed to be an enlightening experience; such was the extent of my knowledge. Most people who had gone before had been fairly hazy on the subject, so I hadn’t much of a warning for what was to come.
When my group and I first arrived, we went on a brief tour to Jacob’s Well, an all-women’s shelter, and Lord’s Place, a shelter which housed AIDS patients, women and Bethlehem House, a building for young boys. I was in a fog as I walked around the complexes, my mind completely overloaded with the bombardment of sights and sounds and smells. The poverty of the people who stayed there was so absolute and the disabilities so pronounced that it was hard to digest it all at once.
During my stay I worked mainly in Bethlehem house in the crib section, where a good many of the boys were unable to walk or move. Here I was set to work drying the boys after they were hosed down and washed outside, putting on diapers and placing the boys in their respective cribs. Later at lunchtime I helped feed a few of the boys, a task which was more difficult than one might assume. Some of the more mobile were easier to feed, but a few of the younger bedridden children lacked the basic sucking instinct to drink the formula from the bottles. Hence the formula more often than not tended to dribble out the side of their mouth as often as get into their stomach.
Yet despite this apparent poverty in the shelters, the residents and the Brothers who worked there were all amazingly joyful and content, more so than even most Americans, who aren’t lacking a thing in the physical sense. I would look down into a crib and see a child smiling up at me or I would be in the women’s section at Lord’s Place and watch the residents dancing to music, seemingly oblivious to their present situation. However, perhaps this is because of something which even the simplest of us all can fathom-things aren’t everything. Even if one is in the slums of Jamaica, happiness can be found because there is more to life than the latest of whatever society comes up with that we absolutely must have-or so we are told.
So I came to Jamaica prepared to give up some of my time to help those less fortunate; however, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the residents in the shelters and the Brothers who stayed there helped me to understand a bit more about the meaning of life instead.
The experience which I am about to relate does not contain great tales or deeds about myself, nor any famous, world- renown work. This is because most heroes are recognized because of the great deeds they did that drastically changed the entire globe in some physical aspect. However, the heroes I found were not great Hercules or leaders of armies or a powerful country. They were simply Brothers of the Missionaries of the Poor, dedicated to serving the seemingly lowliest of humanity. They did not advertise their acts, nor were they constantly bombarded by the media while on their way to large conventions or other public showings. Rather they worked in places where the invisibles of society reside. They worked even in places one might not suspect they would be needed.
“Oh, you’re going to Jamaica?” my friends would ask, their mouths shaped in envious o’s. Usually one thinks of Jamaica as a tropical paradise with white beaches and sapphire waters. It hardly seemed a place where poverty abounded or where any trauma beyond a sunburn would occur.
“Yes, I’m going there on a mission trip,” I’d reply.
“Oh,” Their faces would fall and tongues stumble, trying to say the right thing, “Well that’s… different.”
I myself was rather blasé about the mission trip down to Jamaica. Having spent a good amount of time traveling during my gap year as well as volunteering at a nearby hospital, I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. All I knew was that the shelters were run by Missionaries of the Poor in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica and the trip was supposed to be an enlightening experience; such was the extent of my knowledge. Most people who had gone before had been fairly hazy on the subject, so I hadn’t much of a warning for what was to come.
When my group and I first arrived, we went on a brief tour to Jacob’s Well, an all-women’s shelter, and Lord’s Place, a shelter which housed AIDS patients, women and Bethlehem House, a building for young boys. I was in a fog as I walked around the complexes, my mind completely overloaded with the bombardment of sights and sounds and smells. The poverty of the people who stayed there was so absolute and the disabilities so pronounced that it was hard to digest it all at once.
During my stay I worked mainly in Bethlehem house in the crib section, where a good many of the boys were unable to walk or move. Here I was set to work drying the boys after they were hosed down and washed outside, putting on diapers and placing the boys in their respective cribs. Later at lunchtime I helped feed a few of the boys, a task which was more difficult than one might assume. Some of the more mobile were easier to feed, but a few of the younger bedridden children lacked the basic sucking instinct to drink the formula from the bottles. Hence the formula more often than not tended to dribble out the side of their mouth as often as get into their stomach.
Yet despite this apparent poverty in the shelters, the residents and the Brothers who worked there were all amazingly joyful and content, more so than even most Americans, who aren’t lacking a thing in the physical sense. I would look down into a crib and see a child smiling up at me or I would be in the women’s section at Lord’s Place and watch the residents dancing to music, seemingly oblivious to their present situation. However, perhaps this is because of something which even the simplest of us all can fathom-things aren’t everything. Even if one is in the slums of Jamaica, happiness can be found because there is more to life than the latest of whatever society comes up with that we absolutely must have-or so we are told.
So I came to Jamaica prepared to give up some of my time to help those less fortunate; however, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the residents in the shelters and the Brothers who stayed there helped me to understand a bit more about the meaning of life instead.