Located outside a small coastal town of Honduras, Finca del Niño (Farm of the Child) is home to 26 children brought here for purposes of orphanhood, abuse, neglect, and other circumstances of compromised safety. Also on the property is a medical clinic and school, with open doors to both those living in the Finca and in the surrounding villages. I’ve committed to living here and working as an international volunteer for at least a year and a half.
Why do ants bite?
Every once in a while things like going for runs and doing abdominal exercises at 4:30 in the morning sound like a really good idea to me. I wanted to lead with that, to provide an early exit from this post in case it qualifies me as an unsuitable narrator in your eyes and you’d prefer spending your time reading the blog of someone bit more practical.
So my first Wednesday here at Finca del Niño, when the seasoned missionary Kassidy asked me if I wanted to join her and some of the older girls from the Finca for a 4:30AM run and ab workout the next day, I said a silent apology to my sleep schedule and gave my “absolutely.” And as a messy procession of bouncing iPhone lights and headlamps, we did our dark-and-early laps around the soccer field. The milky way was actually visible. The Caribbean, maybe 30 yards away, tried to direct my breathing with each wave. Roosters cock-a-doodle-dooed as if they’d mistaken the early emergence of the pale Gringa for the sunrise.
The run was good, fast enough to justify a shower but slow enough where you don’t start to resent your companions, and it almost felt like college again. We formed a circle, busted out some squats and lunges, and Kassidy announced the commencement of “8-Minute Abs.”
And that, my friends, is when I planked in an anthill.
I’m not sure I can linguistically do their work justice, but I’ll say this: The speed with which the entire colony of fire ants rallied around the cause was truly extraordinary. Within three seconds it felt like someone was branding an entire Shakespearian play on my arms and legs.
According to a quick Google search I did later during my weekly WiFi, fire ants bite and then sting anything they perceive as a threat. I must’ve looked like quite the Godzilla. I tried to brush them all off, removed myself from their angry mob, finished the plank a little bit afuera del círculo, may or may not have shed some silent tears.
When we got back to the house, I stopped itching for a second to catch my reflection in the mirror. It was worse than I thought. More thorough than I thought. If I looked like Godzilla to the ants before I couldn’t imagine what they’d think now. I was horrified, and increasingly itchy, but then I met my own eyes and something else took over… I smiled.
“Guys, I look like a pink pickle,” I announced a bit later to some other missionaries.
And there’s something about that moment, of our laughing despite an objectively ugly reflection, of sympathizing for something objectively uncomfortable, of seeing something beyond it. The knowledge that, despite it all, I was absolutely fine by some measure beyond our own. The itchy pink pickle skin would eventually heal and fade away, but that peace and that freedom that allowed me to still smile nonetheless never would. And I didn’t have to wait to access that.
How do we look, and still see?
I’m no zoological expert here, but when Google said ants only bite/sting out of fear, it was a very “of course” kind of moment. The ants weren’t enacting a plot to cause Ally all-encompassing searing pain—they were just terrified and acting for their own survival. In a similar way, but in less of a so readily “of course” kind of way, I will always stubbornly believe that no human wakes up saying, “I’m going to be a cruel, difficult person today because that is who I am and that is deeply fulfilling to me.”
When we act (or react) in fear it’s because, whether we’re conscious of it or not, fear’s convinced us it’s our best option. That we ought to ignore that deeper calling to something better if we want to make it out alright. That we need to attack in order to maintain any semblance of control. But the de-escalation of violent cycles can happen only when we finally accept the storm-calming truth that we are all on the same team here, the one that can in fact witness to that something better.
We can always look around and find a lot that’s wrong—the human rights abuses, the shootings, the wars, the discriminations, the gangs, the poverty, our own shortcomings—and I don’t think we should look away from those things. But I wonder what happens when we change our sight. When we don’t deny that these realities exist in our world, but instead of adding more attack to the equation we dig deeper, plant ourselves a bit firmer into the source of hope that isn’t of this world. Of a God that will always carry us through.
When we look into the eyes of whoever we’re perceiving as weak, guilty, wounded (bitten), difficult, mean, arrogant, horrible, and we see something beyond this world of fear and its shifting byproducts: the very face of God.
Parts of orientation here have been heavy. Listening to the realities of the lives of kids who live here, confronting my own realities and then immediately turning around to play soccer with the kids, was admittedly, humblingly, jarring. Fear’s put up a good fight. But it never lasts. It never gets the last word. Because Rosa is open up the field waiting for that pass. Because Sofia wants to show you her photo album with all the friends she’s grown up with here. Because later, at the evening prayer service, Marco offers up an intention for the incarcerated. Again. Because he knows the truth of hope: God’s cheering for us all, right now.
Why are you still eating the table?
I’ve been officially cast in the role of the next Kindergarten Teacher here at our Centro de Education San Pedro. It’s a privilege, a dream, a joy, and, as I’ve realized at times during this shadowing period, often all of my biggest fears dancing onstage at once.
For example, this past week, the very talented current teacher Melanie asked that I read a book to the class before recess. There’s a whole lot of temptation to see Kindergarten as a teacher-versus-all match when you look up from the book you’re reading to them, all vulnerable in your second language, and see one girl with her face on the floor and her shoes on the table (because, comfort), one boy head-locking another boy (but they’re both laughing about it?), a third boy ripping the edging off the nice donated table (occasionally pausing to admire his work and put his entire mouth around it), another girl talking to no one in particular about nothing in particular in a particular volume your reading voice gets hopelessly lost in. I was shaken, but eventually found the calm to wait, to regain their attention, and finish the book.
Later I was sitting next to the boy who had been chowing down on the table. He was crying because Melanie had moved his clothespin, with lots of reason, into the red section of the behavior chart. I could tell he wanted to do better. This had so much potential to be a valuable learning moment. But then, in the height of his distress, his hands absentmindedly grabbed at the table edging once more….and then, mid sob, his mouth found the edging again. Dude.
I had the question translated in my head and everything: ¿Por qué todavia estás comiendo la mesa?? But then it occurred to me that Juan Manuel probably honestly had no idea why, at the end of the day, he was in fact still eating the table. He didn’t wake up saying, “I’m going to eat the table today and try to pick some fights with my classmates and refuse to color the ‘T’ worksheet and make the new teacher question everything because that is who I am and that is deeply fulfilling to me.”
So I asked God for some guidance, and switched up the approach.
“Juan Manuel,” I said gently, tapping his shoulder. “Yo creo en ti.” I believe in you.
It wasn’t immediate, but I knew he heard me. And I’ll never know if it was what I said that did it, but something shifted in the kid after that. Within minutes, he was coloring the “T” worksheet with astonishing in-the-lines precision, proudly showing Melanie and me the finished product. With the extra time remaining, he took El Arbol Generoso off the shelf (aka The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein if you’d like to cry along with me) and sat next to me. “Léemelo, Profa.” Teacher, read it to me.
If I don’t have the faith to look past fear and see as God does, as Jesus does, I will fold as a teacher. But if I can turn my eyes into the chaos, and then beyond it, to find the God who’s already transcended it, the realization that we always have been on the same team, I might just have a chance.
One final question: How do we save the world?
Oh goodness child, don’t stress yourself out! We aren’t here to save the world—God’s already taken care of that. Let’s just approach our lives, our selves, and each other in a way that witnesses to the light that shines beyond this world. Look in the mirror and smile. Pray for the incarcerated. Welcome the stranger and all their messy backstory. Believe in people. Harness the hope that fear cannot ever fully snuff out and we’ll realize we’re all on the same team, being cheered on by the same God.
That kind of hope doesn’t make sense to the world but it’s the realest thing I’ve ever known.
I’ll hand this conclusion over to the maestro of this mode of living:
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -Jesus ( John 16:33 )