The small city that I will be moving to is called Yapacani. It is about 2 hours away from where I am currently in Okinawa. Next week I will be having to say goodbye to the students and friends I made here. For the readers who think all locations in Bolivia are all the same, they are not. Okinawa is as different to yapacani as the farms of Pennsylvania are to the bustling streets of NYC. Although the new setting is going to be quite different from the location I am in now, I know that I will thrive well in Yapacani. Its a good reminder that the new mission frontier are the cities now a days and there is clearly a need for a good example in these settings. Yapacani was on my top 5 list for mission sites when I was first discerning. How blessed am I to be able to receive this mission site experience as well? There is an Italian missionary priest in Yapacani who has been asking my director back in the states for years for a volunteer or two in Yapacani. I met the Salesian priest, Padre Arturo, about 4 weeks ago in yapacani when I was visiting. He is simply "Don Bosco" and I'm happy to serve in a place where there has been a longing for volunteers. I will not be alone for too long. I will be serving there in the next year with a new volunteer, Connor. Connor is currently in the USA but will be arriving to yapacani in November. He will be studying spanish in Cochabamba for two months before arriving to Yapacani. What will we be doing in Yapacani? I will talk more about it next month, but the common theme for every salesian site around the world revolves around serving the kids in one shape or form. Some ways are more direct than others but all are important and can be carried out with great love. Just as Don Bosco wanted, each site has a playground, school, church, and a home. (haha in Yapacani the salesians also have a soup kitchen and a radio station that broadcasts over a couple cities, Padre Arturo invited me to introduce myself over the air when I visited :P) I will continue to be loving and kind to the kids, as Don Bosco was, while pointing them to Christ. Loving the kids equally and correcting them with kindness.
My time in Okinawa was time well spent. I certainly learned valuable lessons here that I will bring over to yapacani. Some include the following: loving not just kids equally but adults too, being considerate to others, keeping and following through with my words, putting the mission first, reacting positively and not spreading negativity, ...and depending on God more ;) . I look back at my mission statement time to time and I realize if I just simply followed it daily, I would not have had as many bumps in the roads as I had. This would be my "6 month advice" to any of the new SLM's who are reading my blog, Live Out Your Mission Statement Each Day!!!
I'm certainly going to miss the kids whom I have got to know. I only hope that they do not remember me as simply as "teacher adam" but for who I was with God and my passion for Him. To God be the Glory. I always look forward to the next beginning. I really do! There are people that will only know of God's love from me. The same goes for you too! There are people that will only know of God's love from YOU. One day God will call us all home and hopefully you will see the people that you built relationships there. This is what gives me motivation to keep on spreading the Faith and being God's vessel! Feliz Viaje Okinawa!
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