One of the most difficult and sometimes frustrating parts of being here is how I am affected by time. I believe that ministry and mission, loving and celebrating other people, always take place within the context of relationship. And relationship takes time. Even when I have the energy and desire to pursue a ministry-relationship with someone here, it often seems that the time doesn’t exist for it.

     I think the hardest part of being a volunteer is that the volunteer experience will one day end. Departure dates come and volunteers leave, and hopefully a connection can remain through letters and prayers to keep the love-sharing, God-sharing friendship alive. This applies to the friendships formed between volunteers and San Lucas residents as well as to those formed within the volunteer community.

     It is hard to invest the energy necessary for the most meaningful human connection possible when I know that it is likely a short-term friendship. Unfortunately, this can often keep me from going to great depth, or sometimes any depth at all, with some fellow volunteers. When I have been vulnerable and shared deeply, I have had to put out of my mind the pain that I know will come when we have to part. Each difficult good-bye makes subsequent hellos equally difficult, knowing the real consequences of risking real connections.

     The shortness of time also makes it difficult to reach out to the local community. It takes time to learn the languages and the culture. It takes time to stop and get to know a person; it is far easier, but far shallower, to just give a quick greeting or maybe only a smile. I always cringe when people simply give candy to outstretched young hands while ignoring (purposefully or accidentally) the outstretched hearts. I wonder how often I do that? I never give out candy or toys or things like that, but the quick greetings I give surely don’t suffice when a real relationship could be built if I would only take, and give, the time and energy.

     There are members of the youth group La Voz de Cristo with whom I share a mutual respect and with whom I know I could build a friendship. It seems so difficult, though, when I look at the time such friendship needs in order to develop and be maintained. I am not going to be in San Lucas comparatively long. Also, they have lives and I have a life, and we don’t intersect too much more often than the weekly group gatherings.

     I think that what I am lamenting is one of the effects of the fall from Eden. With the fall, humanity moved from a deep, unhindered connectedness to a shallow discord. Once in a while, I catch a glimpse of how we were created to be, and I mourn our fall from unimpeded love. I long for the ideal, intended unity, and even while striving for that unity I get caught up in the separated, disjointed reality of life.

     This is one of my life’s greatest struggles: I compare what is to what should be, and I get discouraged. The depth of human union is not the norm of human existence, though it should be. There is no easy road to a mutual sharing of self, no simple path to a common communion of love. At times I can ignore this by keeping myself shallow and/or busy, but then the loneliness only grows stronger.

     What do I need to do about this? I think that I am, that we all are, to take what is available and work hard at making it work right. Looking at what is available, it seems that the biggest resource we all have, and that we all have in equal quantities, is time. The very thing that seems to work against me! Somehow, I need to make time work in my favor. I need to savor the moments I have with my fellow volunteers. I need to invest in both language and cultural understandings in order to connect as best I can with the people I came here to serve. Instead of focusing on the looming end of my time here, I need to make the most every present opportunity.

     Somehow, I need to look past the shortness of time and let our eternal God work through each moment he gives me and which I return to him in prayer and in service to the people around me.