I have been serving on humanitarian trips since I was 16. I have found nothing more rewarding, more inspiring than traveling to other countries and working with orphans, contractors, and educators to help serve others.
A few years into my teaching career, I was teaching a unit on hunger that brought me and my students to tears. One beautiful young lady, who had never even been on an airplane before, told me that she wanted to go on a humanitarian trip with me during Spring Break. I smiled and told her that I’d love to, but never assumed that we would actually go. However, four months later, somehow we had planned, organized, and paid for a construction project trip to Mexico. I had been looking forward to a week cleaning my house, but instead renewed my love for traveling and humanitarian projects. Since then, I have been trying to go on a humanitarian trip once a year. I somehow even managed to go to Ecuador with a group of students while still nursing my nine-month-old. I was THAT woman, pumping and dumping in the Panama City airport during a connection flight so I wouldn’t lose my milk supply when I came back home.
I Come Back Better
As my boys have been getting older, traveling has become easier and easier and even more rewarding. I have found that I always come back home a better mom, wife, friend, teacher. After working with street orphans who are covered in lice and dog bites, I come home squeezing my children even tighter. After working with a family of five who live in a hovel made of scrap rusted metal and wood, I appreciate all of the hard work my husband does to take care of our house. And after helping to teach orphans English, I come back a more culturally aware teacher. I have never found anything else in my life that can fill my cup any fuller than humanitarian trips.
This year, even amongst the turmoil of the American Mexican border, I decided to travel to Mexico during the two weeks of Winter Break to serve the communities of Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada. I have been blessed to have the greatest in-laws who are always gracious enough to take my boys without question. So as I dropped my boys off, kissed their little faces through tears, I boarded a plane, so excited to be spending the week with my husband in Mexico.
While every one of my trips is different, this trip was a unique adventure because it was including two different projects. We spent our first few days at the Tijuana Children’s Mission, an orphanage started by a beautiful woman named Martha in 1964. She has developed two orphanages, one in Tijuana and the other on the coast in Rosarito. While focusing on the importance of serving Christ, she has also provided dental care, education initiatives, and a beautiful sense of home for almost 100 boys and girls. Martha welcomed us with open arms, providing nice lodging for us in the orphanage itself. We spent three nights there, spending our days playing games, playing football, and celebrating their Christmas with them. Even though our Spanish wasn’t the best, we quickly learned how easily we can communicate with smiles and open arms.
I am also an ambassador for a program called Days for Girls, which provides health education and hygiene kits for boys and girls. Girls in some third world countries have to use banana leaves, cushion, leaves, cardboard, and even pinecones when they have their periods which can lead to infection, chafing, and the inability to go to school. I love teaching girls about their bodies and building up their self-esteem by providing washable sanitary supplies that will give them the confidence they need to keep their bodies safe and healthy. I was able to work with the girls at the orphanage as a Days for Girls ambassador and they were eternally grateful for the opportunity to realize that “that time of the month” doesn’t mean that they have to stay home from school and be embarrassed to be a girl.
The rest of the trip was spent in a tiny farming community outside of Ensenada building a house for a beautiful family of four who lived in absolute squalor. Meet the Suarez family. They have two children, aged 8 and 11. This is where they used to live.
We worked with an amazing organization called Baja Bound. I have worked several construction projects in the past and there is a quick and fun systematic way that anyone with little to no prior experience can help participate. There is a foundation to set, sidings to paint, nails to be hammered. What was cool about this project was that the family was constructing alongside with us learning how to construct a house themselves, so that they could later maintain their own house once we left, which is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty.
We met the family, learned more about them and what they liked to do. The two children have been unable to attend school because it was too far away and they couldn’t afford transportation. Baja Bound has been working with them to find American sponsors to help provide educational funding for them so that they can go to school which could lead to a better life in their future.
What is so cool about construction projects is that you learn so many valuable tools about the construction trade. I now know how to hold a hammer. I now know how to frame and put up siding. While giving back, I am also learning valuable skills that will be helpful for the rest of my life. Here is what their house ended when it was finished:
At the end, we were able to provide a safe home for this loving family who truly deserved it. Seeing the love and appreciation through the eyes of this family, that is what truly fills my bucket and makes my heart so happy. Parenting is hard enough, but I could never imagine trying to parent two children in what they were living in. It truly makes you grateful for all the things that I have. When I want to complain, trips like this really help me reflect and realize how just donating just one week of your time and money can really make a large impact for many others who don’t have the same opportunities that I do.
If you are interested in learning more about my humanitarian experiences, you can catch my TED talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-FzgAsRGwk
And if you are ever interested in joining me on my next humanitarian trip, please email me at byrdette@hotmail.com. I would love to meet new people who have the same passion for humanitarian work like I do. One person, one week, one heart can make a huge impact.
