When I returned from my in-country vacation with Luke last December, I truly had no idea what to expect regarding living in community the upcoming year, especially within Casa Santa Teresita, our missionary house. All 6 of the people that I lived in community with my first year at the Finca discerned to return to the United States, and suddenly we were only a community of three people in CST and I was the only one from the previous year that decided to stay.
As I made the long journey from San Pedro Sula to the Finca on December 12th, 2022, I was truly terrified of what would happen with Natalie, Kenna, & me in the upcoming year. Would we get along? Would I be able to form the deep, life-changing friendships that I had during my first year at the Finca? How would community life look different with only three people living in the house? I ultimately forced myself to stop anxiously thinking about the million different possibilities because we were going to find out these answers sooner rather than later.
Community life is SUCH an important part of our Finca experience because missionaries literally do everything together. Cook, eat, work, play, swim, pray, you name it. Missionaries spend SO much time together every single day that it can make things extremely challenging for the entire community if people don’t get along well and support and love one another. Community is easy to put on the back-burner because of the busy pace of Finca life and the million things that are waiting to be done every day, but it can truly make or break a missionary’s Finca experience.
That being said, my year with Kenna and Natalie WAS LITERALLY INCREDIBLE!!! It is hard to precisely remember what I thought was the best-case scenario regarding community life as I traveled back to the Finca last December, but this past year with Natalie and Kenna went WAY, WAY above and beyond whatever I was thinking. Those two young women positively impacted my life in SO, SO many ways, and I will never, ever be able to express to them enough how grateful I am for the past year that we spent together. I already have two sisters, but I truly love Natalie and Kenna like sisters! I guess I have 4 sisters now!
Natalie and Kenna left the Finca on December 6th after discerning to return back to the United States, and I miss them EVERY SINGLE DAY!! In my experience, it typically takes a week or two after your missionary group leaves the Finca for life to more or less go back to normal. Yet, here we are two weeks after Natalie and Kenna left the Finca, and I still have a Natalie and Kenna sized hole in my heart. I miss them so dang much every day, and I think that speaks volumes to the INCREDIBLE community that we were able to build this past year!
Kenna and Natalie relentlessly loved me for who I am, and I felt unbelievably comfortable to simply be myself around them, which isn’t always the case while living in community. They challenged me by their daily examples of how they live life and occasionally by their words to become a better version of myself every single day. They supported and challenged me to love deeper, to lean on community more, and to simply embrace the art of being the three best friends that anyone has ever had.
Natalie has an AMAZING, AMAZING ability to make someone laugh and to loosen any tension there is in the room simply by being herself. She has an AMAZING, AMAZING ability to make everyone around her feel loved, welcomed, and heard, and the laid-back way that she approaches her everyday life has challenged me to approach my life in the same manner! Natalie is the ultimate jokester, and her continuous jokes around CST and the Finca in general made every person inside our Finca fence, including kids, tías, missionaries, Sores, Lics, and our other Honduran employees, feel more loved and appreciated. Natalie and I ate breakfast together most mornings while sitting at the small table in the sala, staring at the ocean and making small talk, reading, or joking about something. I would do a lot of things to have her back at the table with me every morning simply being the Natalie Gaber that we love so much!
Kenna has an AMAZING, AMAZING ability to connect with those around her and to simply love those people to the best of her ability. Her ability to simply sit and be with someone, whether it be someone from the outside communities, a Finca child, a tía, or one of our security guards or maintenance staff, has inspired me to attempt to improve the same thing in my life, with little worry about the tasks needing to be done. Kenna is also one of the most faithful people that I have ever met, and her daily example of how she lives life will continue to impact me for the rest of my life! I miss Kenna’s presence so dang much at the Finca, ranging from seeing Selvin’s smile after a long conversation with Kenna to briefly saying good morning as we passed one another at 4:50am on our way to morning prayer to her genuine gift to make me feel loved in every conversation.
Who knows what the future holds for Natalie and Kenna, but they are unbelievable young women and will COMPETE, DOMINATE, AND WIN at truly everything they do in life. This past year with them at the Finca has been one of the best times of my life, and I will forever cherish the year that the THREE BEST FRIENDS THAT ANYONE HAS EVER HAD got to spend together at a children’s home that we all love so dang much.
Please pray for our current missionary community at the Finca! We have had our fair share of difficulties and conflict in our short time together, but please pray for our ability to work together and to love our Finca community to the best of our abilities in our year together.
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God Bless!