Painting Paradise

A couple weeks ago, we went with one of our teams into Paradise to paint the soccer stadium and hang out with some of the kids. As we lugged down the huge paint jugs and all of our supplies, the kids and families met us and asked us if they could help us paint. Of course we said yes. As we started to distrubute the supplies and get started painting, kids came from all over the neighborhood. (One thing I have learned quickly from spending time in Paradise is that when it comes to gringos, news travels fast when we arrive.)  After painting for a few minutes, there were more kids on the stands than there were gringos. Looking into their sweet eyes, we couldn’t help but give the kids the brushes and let them go to town, painting their stadium. It was truly a beautiful sight to look up into the stands and see the kids painting their own thing. I think the kids got more paint on each other than they got on the stands, even the dog was painted blue at the end of the day, but with each swipe of the brush and uproar of laugher as they got paint in my hair or accidentally painted a huge stipe across my legs as they walked by, I was infinitely blessed. I loved getting to know their precious faces, and asking their names over and over again, and listening to them giggle when I messed up what I was trying to say. They just smiled up at me with those big brown eyes and there was nothing I could do but hold their paint covered hands and giggle at the fact that I had no clue what I was saying. 

As we painted, we talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up and which subjects in school were their favorite. I stumbled through my broken Spanish and marveled at them as they taught me the words to say, pronouncing them slow and without accent. We ran around chasing each other with paint, and laughed as they put their hand prints on my T-shirt at the end of the day, forever making their claim on my life. 

As we painted and played and talked, I got to tell the kids that at the end of the week I wasn’t going home. That I would see them again soon, that I loved them too much to leave.  The looks on their faces were sometimes puzzled and other times full of joy as they realized that this was my home and that all of our laughs and broken words wont just stand as an incredible memory, but rather the start of relationships. 

I went home that night and played conversations and memories over and over in my head.  Josue, one of the best little painters out there, wants to be an architect. Julio wants to be a doctor. Yoselin wants to be a secretary. They all have dreams, just like I did as a kid. My dream was to be a missionary, and after years of encouragement and lots of prayer here I am. Now, my dream is to pay it forward. 

My dream is to make their dreams a reality. 

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