On Friday, October 7th at about 4:00pm, Natalie and Kenna arrived to the Finca and their home for the next 16+ months!! Natalie and Kenna are the new full-time missionaries in this year’s class, and we are so excited to show them how to do life here, why we love this children’s home in rural Honduras so dang much, and to have SO, SO, SO many laughs and lifetime memories! I have only known them for approximately two weeks, and I am SO, SO excited to get to know them on a deeper level and to share (at least) the next year with them!
This year’s full-time missionary group is only Natalie and Kenna, which is an unusually small group for the number of missionaries that the Finca normally brings in every October. Nonetheless, the girls spent eight weeks together in language school in Antigua, Guatemala, enjoying the city that captured my heart in so many ways and allowed me to get to know my community members in such a deep and profound way. My missionary community still looks back on Antigua as one of the best times of our lives, and this time together allowed us to form the incredible lifelong friendships that we have developed over the last year!
After our discernment retreat in late September, only the McAuliff family and I decided to stay at the Finca for a second year! This is definitely a bitter sweet feeling, as I am excited to share the next year with the McAuliff’s, Natalie, and Kenna yet extremely sad to say goodbye to the community that I just spent the last 14 months with in our missionary house, Casa Santa Teresita (CST). I am hopeful that all of my current community members will be lifelong friends with many opportunities to meet up and reminisce on the many laughs and hardships that we shared as a missionary community!
That being said, only having 3 missionaries in CST next year will be incredibly different from a community aspect! Molly, Drew, and their three kids live in a different house on the Finca, and despite the community-wide meals three or four times a week, game nights once or twice during the week, and community nights every Monday, we don’t and shouldn’t share every meal together, cook together, read together, or sit in the sala together every night talking about life like the missionaries living in CST do. I believe that only having three missionaries in CST next year has the ability to produce incredibly fruitful and intimate relationships, and I am excited to embrace that challenge of getting to know Natalie and Kenna on the same level as the community members that I just spent the last 14 months with!
Along the same lines, only having three community members living in CST next year will drastically impact the Finca community as well! Whether Finca missionaries agree with it or not, missionaries do an INCREDIBLE number of necessary jobs every day to keep the Finca running smoothly. In addition to the obvious responsibilities of loving the kids, tías, Sores, maintenance workers, teachers, students, watchies, and other people at the Finca with all of our hearts, missionaries teach kindergarten, teach special education classes, teach English classes, and act as the vice principal and substitute teacher at the school. Missionaries are also nurses, give new clothes and gifts to the children, organize PAVI (our bridge to independent life program), do special projects at the Finca, help run the Finca as missionary coordinator, plan the parties for Christmas and New Years, and countless other jobs and responsibilities.
As our missionary community in CST decreases from 7 missionaries last year to only 3 missionaries in the coming year, many jobs that are normally completed by missionaries will have to be passed off to the Honduran staff at the Finca. This handoff of some responsibilities to Hondurans has the ability to make the Finca less reliant on American missionaries, which would be a great thing for the stability of the Finca because missionaries inherently come and go so often. However, if not properly handled and/or more Honduran staff is not hired to help in this process, the current Honduran staff will simply be handed more jobs and responsibilities to complete, which could easily lead to burnout and not serving and loving the kids to the best of our abilities. It is incredibly important to remember that EVERYTHING we do and change at the Finca must have the best interest of our kids and Finca community in mind, especially because this is their home and don’t have the privilege of returning to the United States after 1, 2, or 3 years like missionaries.
All in all, I am so excited to have discerned to stay at the Finca for another year, as this children’s home in rural Honduras has truly captured my heart in so many ways and has made me a better-version-of-myself! It truly brings me so much joy and peace to accompany and to live with our kids, tías, watchies, Sores, and everyone in the Finca community. I love the ability to stop by every house at the Finca and to joke around with all the Finca kids and tías, as well as having serious conversations about life and faith. However, I am also extremely excited to continue to get to know Natalie and Kenna on a deeper and deeper level, especially when so many of the missionaries from this past year will be leaving the Finca in early December. SIMPLY.BOLDLY.LOVE!!
Please pray for all of our current missionaries at the Finca that discerned to leave the Finca in early December to return back to the US. Please pray for Emma, Alicia, Luke, Megan, Karen, and Kristen, especially for their peace and joy as they hope to fully enjoy the last 6 weeks at the Finca and with the kids that they all love SO, SO much!
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God Bless!