I’m leaving in three days.
Going back to the States, where I will most likely have reverse culture shock.
If you were looking for the truth about how I feel about going back, I’d lay it out without the slightest hesitation.
I’m dreading it.
Go ahead, suck air, re-read the sentence, faint if it suits you.
I’m dreading it.
Not as much going to the States, but leaving here.
Every second I’ll be there, I’ll be thinking about what I could have done. What I didn’t.
I’ll regret how I never tried overly hard to make a friend; how I always held back, how I didn’t really try to share my precious Jesus.
I sat back and watched, like my home, Ecuador, was a television program. Like the kids here, some of who are beaten and starving, were too far away to reach.
And this line should say something that reassures you that this kid writing did something with this year. It doesn’t.
I look at the town here, and see everything’s the same. And it feels like I’m leaving it the way I found it.
Broken. Lost. Hungry.
And I look at the kids I should know but don’t. And think about how I could have helped them.
How even though they couldn’t have left their lives, they could have had something better. But they don’t.
It’s the most frustrating thing, feeling like you’ll never make a difference.
And it’s the strongest emotion I feel right now.
It’s crushing me.
I don’t want to leave.