It’s quiet time now…and the warden is passing by each of us and slipping the old “whisper!” yell as he steps by, and I have to wonder why silence is such a special and rare gift in the complexity of our normal lives. Yet right now I feel as if nothing about life is normal; I wake at six in the morning (to the sounds of not an alarm clock but the stepping of careless feet on my arm as people descend the mountain that is our bunk beds) to wake at six is a feat I would never perform in my normal life. I load up in a truck and travel the endless barrages of ups and downs that qualify for a proper road in this country, I unload plywood, play with kids, and build houses…yet none of this ever deals in what I am sitting in right now—the silence.

It is sweet and reflective and it begs me to focus on things that would never be a thought in my normal everyday life; and when I think about my day in quiet’s embrace my mind drifts to what affected me most in this completely different world named Tijuana.

The people.

However cliché this sounds, it is the truest statement I could make. These people break your heart with their predicaments and lifestyles yet they sew it back together with their toothy smiles and loving kindness. They bring a light to whatever they touch, and what puzzles me more than ever is that I am supposed to be helping them but they are the ones that helped me.

My view of these people have changed in a few short hours, it maybe because I’m older now (I experienced this trip many years ago) but they are the most powerful individuals I’ve ever met. Right here and now though, I’ll tell you that all my current visions of the natives can be summed up in a single, little boy.

When I first arrived on today’s work site I had memories of the long work hours and aching bones, so I must confess that my mood was as south of the boarder as I was, but then I turned and on a hill sat a little boy of about three who waved with a big smile and held none of the hardships of his life in the large brown eyes that looked at me. Over the next few hours I enjoyed learning from him the few words that he could teach and eventually learned that his name was Eduardo.

We played and I gave him bubble gum and we had a bubble blowing contest (he won) and by lunchtime I had a new best friend. What is so intriguing about Eduardo though, is the fact that he does not understand that life could be so much different for him…he loved his life, and even if he is only three there was still an intelligence and appreciation for everything within him as he wacked at the nails I had set up for him to hit. As each hammer swing fell I was also hit by the realization that I needed what Eduardo had, a zest and zeal for life. I needed a dose of Mrs. Dash on top of my busy, “no time for anything but me” life that I was living. I’ve been so invested in my personal life the last nine weeks or so that I have been slipping farther and farther away from what makes life worth living.

Eduardo understood what this “it” was, just like all of the other individuals I meet in this paradox of a city. Community and family are concepts that America had once been established on, but now they have become outdated and useless to so many people (myself included).

And I guess this is my point.

Eduardo taught me today that life is too fast to worry about a paycheck or mortgage or the shallow thoughts of others…we as a people have to be invested in something bigger than ourselves if we are ever going to be able to let God work through us; and I’m starting to see that the only way to be this invested is through the way these people and Eduardo interact…because they don’t sweat the little things and they are inviting, which is exactly how we must be with God, inviting.

By Braxton Troyer