Connected
St Valentino was apparently a 3rd Century Roman Saint who helped young couples to get married to avoid the young man being called up for war by the Emperor Claudius who only allowed single men in his army as he felt married men did not fight as well when they had a wife waiting for them at home. Whether this is fact, fiction or legend no one can be 100% sure.
So thinking of love I enjoyed reading a book called ‘ The Five Languages of Love’ as it helps to understand what some people value more than others. The five identified languages are:- gifts, time spent together, words of affirmation ( ie praise and encouragement) , acts of service, and physical affection. Different folk and personalities value these in different orders and to really love someone is to find out which order they would put their desires in.
When we go on an M10 trip I think the mission we do covers at least 4 of the five spoken about.
The gift of a house! We meet the family we are building for and they are encouraged to help with various jobs as we build, one year the Dad of the family was very enthusiastic and helped so much but then suddenly disappeared for some time, he returned with tears in his eyes and a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper he had worked out that to afford a house like he was receiving he would have to work in his job 12 hours a day for 7 days a week for 25 years. M10 was giving him that gift ! Does that put our fund raising for the trip into perspective?
The Mum & Dad of that house build
M10 was giving him that gift! Does that put our fund raising for the trip into perspective?
We spend time preparing for the trip, 10 months of training an the 10 days in Mexico! Time that we show our love for the people we are meeting, we could be on a sunbed with an iced drink relaxing on holiday but we choose to prepare and get ready then be there doing acts of service… playing with children in an orphanage, maybe washing the cars of the workers that look after them, building a wall, digging the garden over, etc all done to serve a community .
Through translators we give words of affirmation, encouraging those maybe tired adults in the orphanage or the drug rehab centres, mixing with the poorest of poor who live on the rubbish tip at the edge of the city. We explain that we are privileged to be able to serve them and simply spending time with those people can change how they feel about their lives.
Physical affection even with a simple arm around a shoulder is not always appropriate as different cultures can interpret things very differently and we are usually led by those who know the community we are working in better to advise us.
To sum this up when we go on our trip we show those we meet in Mexico and those who’ve helped us to prepare along the way that the world is not all bad, That although the hearts, flowers, cards and fancy gifts of St Valentine’s day can just be a passing time in February. Real love can be shown by one group of mainly young people from another part of the world to a community who has so much less than they do and the most important part of all is that wherever we are and whatever we do we are all connected to each other simply by our humanity.
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