Volunteering is all about giving of yourself, sacrificing your comforts to change someone else’s life. In the giving though, you will find your purpose.
From the very first day of volunteering with Color My World, you will build relationships and bonds with the locals that you will work alongside. Often in broken conversations of part Spanish, part English, and a whole lot of gestures, you will learn of their lives. Without exception, every volunteer returns home from their trip committed to apply what they have learned from their friends in Nicaragua, to appreciate family more, to be grateful for everything they have, and to remember that happiness is not based upon possessions.
Kelli Ferre, a volunteer from our Nicaragua 2015 program shared her #Nicatakeaway on how spending a week with the people of Nicaragua changed her life, she said;
“Nicaragua is my favorite place in the world, and I am so grateful I got to serve there for a week last summer. It was so humbling for me to experience poverty first hand. What impressed me the most was how happy they were. They have almost nothing, but they were always smiling and so cheerful. This serves as a good reminder to me that I can be happy in any circumstance, and that we don’t need much to find joy. I love the people of Nicaragua, and I really hope to go back one day.”
We love every single one of our volunteers, because we get to be a part of their life changing experience. To see a volunteer arrive in Nicaragua at the beginning of the week, unaware of the what to expect, and return home with a piece of their heart left in Nicaragua is a humbling, special experience.
To return to the question of who gains most? It really is no question. We may supply the money and manpower to build a house, or to feed a community in poverty, but the people of Nicaragua, our friends, have the power to change who we are, and the direction that our lives are heading.
When volunteering, give your all, don’t hold anything back. Become a part of the community. By so doing, your life will be changed in ways that you never thought were possible.
