SALT Orientation in Akron, PA

It has been such a blessing for me to spend this past week in Akron, Pennsylvania, with 90 other young adults from 23 countries all over the world, for the SALT and IVEP orientations.  It was so much fun making new friends and building relationships, and learning new words, songs, dances, stories, and ideas from everyone's different cultures. I also learned so much from sessions and discussions with other SALTers and IVEPers, and have felt inspired by so many people! It is not often that you are in a setting where everyone is so genuinely interested in listening and asking questions and learning about each other and their cultures...if only life was always like this, our world would be a much better place!!

In the morning, I will be heading to the Philadelphia airport, and by this time tomorrow night (Thursday), I will be in Guatemala City! It turns out that I will be spending the next 6 weeks in Guatemala, before I head to El Salvador. So this year, instead of experiencing life in one country, I get to experience two! I will have more orientation with the Guatemala SALTer, and the Guatemala/El Salvador MCC reps, and then will study spanish at CASAS for a month, while living in a host family.

I wanted to share this poem with everyone, because it has been shared with me twice already this past week, and I think it really sums up a lot of what I have learned this past week, and also what MCC and my upcoming service assignment is all about.
It is a poem written by Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador, who was assasinated in 1980, for sticking up for the poor and marginalized people of his country.

A Future Not Our Own
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.