Hermanitos // Annmarie Morrison

On the flight from O'Hare to Dallas, I was reading a book that included the quote "every stranger is just family you have yet to meet."

I didn't know it then, but those words that I read less than an hour into this challenging exhausting wonderful journey of ours would serve as the foundation for so much of what I took away from my time here in Cochabomba.

I've loved every minute I've spent over this trip, even the ones in which I'd been lifting buckets of concrete for so long I thought my hands might fall off, and even the ones in which it was so hot out it almost made me dizzy, but especially the ones in which I was spending time with the Bolivian children and being able to experience their entirely trusting and completely unconditional love. Whether it was running or twirling around until I could barely take another step; pouring from my water bottle into little cups to share with the kids on the worksite; laughing as they posed over and over for my camera; or even just sitting on the floor asking about their favorite colors in broken Spanish; the moments I had with the local children were when I felt the most whole, the closest to God. Language barriers hardly even existed between us--all we needed was to enjoy each other's company and to know that love was real and thriving in that place between our team and the people we had the honor of interacting with here.

One of the most important lessons I learned this week came from a six-year-old, a missionary's daughter named Lola. One of the first nights on the trip she and I were playing on the swingset and I mentioned something about the two of us being friends. To my confusion, Lola shook her head at the word. "No, we're not," she responded, seeming almost surprised at my statement. "What are we instead?" I asked her.

"We're sisters," she said, beaming at me. "Sisters in heaven!"

I hadn't thought about it at all before, but she's absolutely 100% right about that. Lola and I are sisters, and we have thousands of other sisters and brothers all over the globe, made equally and loved equally. Every stranger is just family you have yet to meet.

Over the course of this week I've climbed to the top of a mountain, hauled a sum of hundreds of pounds of concrete up three stories using nothing but a rope and pulley (and sometimes Alex's help), and managed to remember every time I've gone to the bathroom to throw my toilet paper away instead of flushing it down the drain. But the hardest thing I'll have to do all week is say goodbye to the sisters and brothers, mis hermanas y hermanos, that I've been able to meet these past few days. I'm boundlessly grateful for the opportunity I've had to touch their lives, even for a moment.

What I would say to anyone reading this now is that outreach doesn't require thirty-five years of travel time, a passport, and somebody to translate for you. You have hermanos everywhere and somebody is always going to appreciate an act of love, no matter how small it may seem to you. So I want to encourage anyone this might resonate with to find family in a stranger sometime in the next few days, even if all it is is a smile when you pass each other in the cereal aisle of the supermarket. You never know how far it might go.

-Annmarie

((PS, Mom and Dad, miss you lots and love you more and I've been hardcore craving a strawberry milkshake like all week so we should definitely go get one of those when I come back to the States for sure))