~"You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place. Like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and place because you'll never be this way ever again."~
The time to say goodbye to the wonderful people of Rising Star came entirely too quickly! It didn't take me long to fall in love with the people and I was just getting really comfortable when it came to an end. On the one hand I couldn't wait to get back to running water, decent food and western toilets but on the other hand I'm afraid to leave because I never want to forget what I've learned and what I've felt here.
I've learned so much about service and love and even about myself. Last Sunday at church one of the speakers talked about service and love. His main point was that serving someone means to love them, you don't don't need to know someone to serve them, therefore you can love someone you don't know. I loved this so much because true Christ-like love knows no boundaries and that is the love I felt for the rising stars! I didn't know these people when I went to serve them but as I did I began to feel a love for them at a level of truth and sincerity that I didn't know was possible to feel for strangers. But looking at these strangers through eyes that are trying to see as Christ sees and serving them with a heart that seeks to have Christ at it's core it becomes easy to see that Phil Collins had a point. These strangers are just like me. They are children of God. They are my brothers and sisters. They are rising stars!
I love how close I became to my Savior while I was there and it is my hope and prayer that I never lose that. I have heard my whole life that the key to happiness is to forget yourself and remember others. I now have a solid and unwavering testimony that that is completely true. I've never been so happy than when I wasn't thinking about myself at all! And I can see so clearly now why the people there, who in our eyes seem to have nothing, are so happy still... because they don't focus on what they don't have but spend so much time focusing on others.
The time to say goodbye to the wonderful people of Rising Star came entirely too quickly! It didn't take me long to fall in love with the people and I was just getting really comfortable when it came to an end. On the one hand I couldn't wait to get back to running water, decent food and western toilets but on the other hand I'm afraid to leave because I never want to forget what I've learned and what I've felt here.
I've learned so much about service and love and even about myself. Last Sunday at church one of the speakers talked about service and love. His main point was that serving someone means to love them, you don't don't need to know someone to serve them, therefore you can love someone you don't know. I loved this so much because true Christ-like love knows no boundaries and that is the love I felt for the rising stars! I didn't know these people when I went to serve them but as I did I began to feel a love for them at a level of truth and sincerity that I didn't know was possible to feel for strangers. But looking at these strangers through eyes that are trying to see as Christ sees and serving them with a heart that seeks to have Christ at it's core it becomes easy to see that Phil Collins had a point. These strangers are just like me. They are children of God. They are my brothers and sisters. They are rising stars!
I love how close I became to my Savior while I was there and it is my hope and prayer that I never lose that. I have heard my whole life that the key to happiness is to forget yourself and remember others. I now have a solid and unwavering testimony that that is completely true. I've never been so happy than when I wasn't thinking about myself at all! And I can see so clearly now why the people there, who in our eyes seem to have nothing, are so happy still... because they don't focus on what they don't have but spend so much time focusing on others.
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