Reflections

Reflecting back on my time on SMI, this past month or so has genuinely been both such a blessing and also a humbling experience for me in the best way possible. Prior to this experience in Kensington, I have had very limited experience or understanding of what it means to work with an underserved population. From working with patients that could only speak Spanish, feeling the limits of inability to communicate, to working with patients with substance use, there was something deeply intrinsic to human connection and dignity that triumphed all other external factors.

Another takeaway this my time at SMI really ingrained into me is this sense of calling, and how as Christians we are called to be faithful. I feel like oftentimes when we think about Missions, it’s easy to view Missions in the lens of having life-changing conversations filled with high and low moments. Yet what does it look like to invest in others, to be faithful even when there are no such moments? To be faithful in the mundane day by day moments when there might not be much going on.  

While my time in SMI was filled with a lot of encouraging conversations, there were at the same time many moments where we got no answers from the doors we knocked on. There were moments when people were really not receptive to the gospel. Even in those moments however, my time here has been a reminder that just because people don’t answer doesn’t mean that we cannot pray for these houses and community at large. What does it look like to be persistent in love and to be faithful even if the results might not be we expect them to be? As my time in SMI ends and I head back to my local community, there is a conviction that missions honestly isn’t just going internationally or dedicating a couple of weeks to outreach. Missions and our call to be faithful can be seen even in our day to day walks of life, within our local communities and within our workplaces. It is a call to be faithful even in our mundane everyday lives.  

Finally, a favorite quote that was shared with me by one of our lecturers while in Esperanza was by Henri Nouwen regarding the concept of Compassion.  

“Compassion, which means literally “to suffer with” is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed, the main spiritual question is not, “what difference do you make” but “what do you have in common?” It is not “excelling” but “serving “ that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others, but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation”  

While working with the underserved population, it genuinely dawned on me that I am honestly not that different than the patients that we see. We are all lacking and broken in so many ways, and the impact a community and environment plays on an individuals decision making is something that is often easily overlooked. What would it look like to be a physician that practices compassion? To understand that there is intrinsic dignity in each patient that we see, no matter what they have gone through. To be humbled as we serve and enter into each others stories, knowing that it really was never about us but how He is already working.