Significance is found in giving your life away, not in selfishly trying to find personal happiness.
-Gary Thomas in A Sacred Marriage
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but the interests of others.
-Paul in Philippians 2:3-4
-Gary Thomas in A Sacred Marriage
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but the interests of others.
-Paul in Philippians 2:3-4
These two quotes sum up what I´ve found to be a major theme in my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer: Humility. I´ve been thinking why I feel so fulfilled during my time here, and one of the conclusions I made is how easy it is for me to give my life away to the people here. While I came down here giving my time and knowledge to the people, I´ve received so much more. Examples include a man gathering food house to house to help my host family feed me, my host dad skipping his work to take care of me when I became sick, or the love I´ve encountered in the countless houses I´ve visited.
In the past few weeks I´ve worked with the three communities cleaning their acueduct lines, making community maps, fixing acueducts, giving latrine presentations, teaching english, and visiting houses.
Highlights of the past couple weeks included
1) Celebrating New Year´s Eve with other volunteers on Bocas Island, visiting a beach and even watching some college football!
2) Hosting representatives from the NGO Waterlines, who helped provide funding for an acueduct in one of my communities. They were able to view the existing project, encourage our efforts to operate and maintain the system in the future, and maintain solid communication with the community.
3) Happy Engineer Day was celebrated on January 7th as I receieved a water level surveying instrument, a model aquaduct system, and a GPS unit. I spent almost the entire day putting the instruments together and becoming familiar with the instruments.
The next month´s plans include watching the Vikings game on Sunday, helping build latrines on Thursday and Friday, going to a Peace Corps Regional Meeting at the end of the month, and seeing my fiancee in February after being apart for six months!
I hope you all have a blessed week and hope you´re all staying warm!
Kevin
In the past few weeks I´ve worked with the three communities cleaning their acueduct lines, making community maps, fixing acueducts, giving latrine presentations, teaching english, and visiting houses.
Highlights of the past couple weeks included
1) Celebrating New Year´s Eve with other volunteers on Bocas Island, visiting a beach and even watching some college football!
2) Hosting representatives from the NGO Waterlines, who helped provide funding for an acueduct in one of my communities. They were able to view the existing project, encourage our efforts to operate and maintain the system in the future, and maintain solid communication with the community.
3) Happy Engineer Day was celebrated on January 7th as I receieved a water level surveying instrument, a model aquaduct system, and a GPS unit. I spent almost the entire day putting the instruments together and becoming familiar with the instruments.
The next month´s plans include watching the Vikings game on Sunday, helping build latrines on Thursday and Friday, going to a Peace Corps Regional Meeting at the end of the month, and seeing my fiancee in February after being apart for six months!
I hope you all have a blessed week and hope you´re all staying warm!
Kevin
