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The Unavoidable Frictions That Shape Me

By Jaime B. Volunteer in Uruguay

It may be easy to assume that being people that want to serve God and pray, we should have little to no problem in our common living. Well, this would be wrong. Trying to decide the activities for the week, deciding who cleans what, who does the dishes, or little things like when someone does not wake up in time or is late and now, we as a whole are late, may all cause some stress. The five of us are quite different, and difficult sometimes. Loving God does not take away our humanity. Nonetheless, it is through the other volunteers, and through those moments of friction, that I learn how to love better. 

I remember one time being upset at another volunteer for something I do not remember, and that person was upset at me too. That day I left a shirt on the ironing board for later. When I came back, the shirt had been ironed. I was awestruck. It was a simple gesture. It probably took no more than a couple of minutes, but I would have never done that. If not being upset I would have never done that for someone else without being asked, even less so being upset. In our “little war” (you could say little war since we were upset at each other) I was completely defeated by the niceness of this gesture. My pride was destroyed by love. I later thanked this person for ironing my shirt, and I stopped being upset.

I’m glad I am not on the mission alone. Living with others has been the source of so much joy in my mission, and I have learned so much from them and from living with them. The good experiences are heightened with them, and the bad experiences are not as rough because I have them. 

When I was living alone in the United States. I thought I was happy. I had time to do what I wanted. I had time to work out, I had time to pray, I could eat whatever and eat quickly to do something else. I could clean whenever I wanted. In all honesty, it was great, but it was all about me. My time, my food, my exercise, my everything. I was so selfish. Sometimes living alone is unavoidable, but it is so risky because it is so easy to be selfish. When I lived alone, I didn’t have an opportunity to love someone by cooking for them, to love by washing someone else’s dishes, ironing someone else’s shirt, fixing someone else’s leak in the toilet, to love by spending time listening to someone instead of working out. I have that opportunity now, and it is thanks to these other volunteers who live with me, my new family here in Uruguay.