You are my Hope

Youth Group Service Trip to Santa Fe NM ~ Emigdio speaking with the Youth. Photo by Sean Patrick Coady

I was gazing at the northern New Mexican landscape around me, from the distant snow-capped mountains looming high, to the rolling hills speckled with desert shrubs, the great plains of dry grasses immediately surrounding me, and the acres of farmland before my very feet. I felt my eyes glistening from the overwhelming beauty that I was taking in and quietly offered a prayer to the Creator who has crafted it all. What a week, what a trip, what an experience, I thought. How blessed am I to be a part of this group of 65 Village Church youth and adults, working with rakes and hoes to clear fields and to plant asparagus and potatoes, swinging pickaxes and shoveling dirt to excavate abandoned homes, create water conservation basins, or open up an acequia water course, lathering up our hands with fistfuls of mud to plaster walls and make adobe bricks?

Just then I was shaken out of my reverie by the voice of Emigdio, a Bolivian migrant who heads up the Tesuque Pueblo Community Farm, and our host for the day. After helping the seven kids from my small group to warm up (and have a bit of fun), he invited them to circle up for a few more words before we began our workday. Emigdio looked into the eyes of each of the kids and said, "I want to thank you for coming - and I want to thank your parents for allowing you to come. Please tell them thank you. I mean that. And thank you to your church." Just then I felt a sort of double-vision, seeing the youth in dirty work clothes, panting from the warm ups, standing in front of me - and the faces of the congregation at Village Church during the commissioning service two weeks ago, beaming with pride and bursting with anticipation on our behalves.

What an incredible gift it is to be church together; that I could be moved to tears among our youth in the Santa Fe region even as my mind is connected to our full congregation in Wellesley; that the body of our church would reach across the country from it's northeastern home to touch this distant southwestern people and land; and that as we worshiped at United Church of Santa Fe on Palm Sunday, as we washed each other’s hands and broke bread together on Maundy Thursday, and as we embarked on a 9 mile pilgrimage to El Santuario de Cimayo on Good Friday, we knew that our congregation was on the Holy Week journey with us - and with Jesus.

While it's never easy to return to normal routines and life patterns after such a formative week of service and fellowship, we are blessed to be welcomed home by such a generous, compassionate, and loving congregation. A place where all are welcome, from the smallest to the tallest; where we can learn and grow and be our best selves; and where we are constantly seeking to follow God's Spirit together.

The last thing Emigdio said to us that morning was, "You are my hope." He said it slowly and deliberately, talking directly to the youth. I agree with Emigdio that the youth are our hope, not simply because they are young, but because they come from the body of our church community, which makes so much more of us together than we could ever be apart.