Learning to Take a Guilt-free Family Vacation

I’m finally on vacation. After a long school year, a trip to Peru and China, then a week straight of preparation for the next Peru trip, I’m on vacation, trying to relax. Everything is perfect. The lake is peaceful, the birds are singing, the weather is serene, and except for the occasional bat flying around in my room at night, I finally have no distractions. I feel as if I can just sit, be quiet, and think.

But when I do sit down to think and reflect I can’t stop thinking about Maria’s Big House of Hope in China. It’s almost like every time I close my eyes I can see one of their precious faces. Or when I think about how much fun I’m having with my family and suddenly I remember that they don’t have a family. Or when I’m laughing at my parents for being a little bit dorky and I remember that they don’t even have parents. Or when I heard a mouse in my room last night and I ran downstairs to get my dad, who even though he didn’t believe me, he did try to listen for it and I think about the nights that they may have nightmares or hear a scary sound and they don’t have anyone to run to.  

The truth is that it is hard. It’s hard living this life when I’ve seen and thought about their lives. It’s also hard to remember that I can’t feel guilty for my lifestyle but instead I should be thankful. It’s hard to feel an urgency like I always need to be doing something for them, working hard, and not relaxing, but then remembering that even Jesus took time to be alone with himself and God (which is also himself…) without any distractions. He took time to invest in the lives of the people around him instead of always spending time ministering to masses of people.

That’s something that I learned in China. Orphan care is hard but it is also sort of easy to make sacrifices for it because it's orphans.  It’s a struggle with orphan care- to not get so wrapped up in caring for others that I forget about caring for the most important people in my life, my family. But I’ve learned that the more that I care about my family and the harder I try to build up my relationships with them, then the more fervently I can work at orphan care because the more freed I feel.

So in the end, it all goes back to family.

A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for adversity.

-Proverbs 17:17