Living in the Shadows by Jake

Hey everybody! Sorry it’s been such a long time since my last update/blog. A lot has been going on, and I’m also bad at sitting and blogging about what’s been going on. Luckily though, I’ve got a couple of blogs coming up, so hopefully that makes up for the past months.

About two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Tijuana as a chaperone for a week-long mission trip. We were invited by our friend Nathan to go with the youth of his church in Sahuarita AZ. We were going to Tijuana to stay at a shelter for women and their children who had experienced domestic violence. While there we would do some light construction work, spending time with the kids and their mothers, playing games and doing different activities with them. I could probably write multiple pages describing all that we did and the whirlwind of emotions that I experienced during that week. But I’m just going to focus on our last day (because let’s be real, who wants to hear about my emotions?).

​On the last day, we went to see the wall between the US and Mexico that is goes into the Pacific Ocean. Being along the wall is always a conflicting time for me. It causes many different emotions (fear, anger, sadness) and causes a lot of thinking to go on in my head. This time at the wall was no different. 

Every time I go to the beach, it makes me incredibly happy. The sound of the ocean always relaxes me. Being out in the sun makes me feel content. And seeing the vastness that is the ocean always blows my mind. It reminds me of all of the fun times I have had with my family and friends at the beach. I can’t think of one unhappy time I’ve had at any beach, for which I am incredibly thankful. This time was weird though, seeing the wall running right through the beach and out into the ocean. I thought back to all of the trips I had taken to the beach, all of the laughter and fun I had there, and the great memories it had given me. However, being there at the wall, I thought about what it would have been like to have a giant sign of division and fear there in all of my memories. How different would my memories be if this wall had been there at my beaches? If during my vacations, there was always a wall there in the background, unmoving. I’m sure we all have those places that are special for us, those places where we have only good memories, where we experienced joy and happiness. Whether they are the beach, or in the woods, a certain town or home, we have special places. Now imagine having something there that separated you from those memories. Or turned them into something fearful. All of these thoughts ran through my mind as I walked along the beach.

​Then, as we walked down the beach, we ran into the families that we had been spending the past week with. They had the opportunity to leave the shelter and go to the beach for a bit of fun. It was amazing to see them laughing and playing in the ocean, screaming and enjoying the freedom of being outside. They were so happy and truly loving life, even in the shadow of this border wall. It nearly brought me to tears of joy to see these kids and their mothers having fun, laughing and spending time together. Yet it also broke my heart that people in communities all along the border have grown accustomed to the view of this wall. They live their lives in the shadow of this wall and do yet their best to live as they can.  We as human beings can learn a lot from these wonderful people. We live in a world that has a lot of sadness. There is fear, hatred, loneliness, discrimination, and challenges going on everyday. The news if filled with unhappy things that do their best to scare us and bring us down. My hope is that we can be more like these families I got to spend a week with. That we may be able to find the joy and laughter during times of sadness, and learn to love even in times of hatred and fear. Though there is a lot of wrong is this world, I hope we can try to recognize and share the joy that is there also, and learn to step out of the shadows of our dividing walls and embrace all that our world has to offer with hope.