To love is to be loved.

Here I am, back on the island. Christmas break was incredible and I was so blessed to be able to see my family again. This first week returning has not been as difficult as I was expecting. There were some changes though. This semester I'm teaching English with another girl, Hilary. For the first day of class we gave each student an interview sheet to fill out, just so we could get to know them better. One of the questions on the sheet was "what do you want to be when you grow up?". What they wrote blew my mind. Here were a few of the answers.
"Doctora, porque me gusta ayudar a los demás" - A doctor because I like to help others. "Bombero, porque es ayudando gente"- A firefighter because it's helping people. "Dentista, porque me gusta curar las bocas de los niños"- A dentist because I like to fix kids' mouths. 
Those were some of my favorites, but many more of the sheets had answers with a similar theme.
Help.
They all want to help.
They want to help because they have been helped.
They want to give out the love that they have received.
They recognize what people have done for them and want to do the same for other kids.
The night I read these answers I also started reading the Gospel Mark. And just like that my mind was blown again. Chapter 1 of Mark has multiple subheadings. Some of these are "Jesus Heals a Man with an Unclean Spirit", "Jesus Heals Many" "Jesus cleanses a Leper". Chapter 2 starts out with "Jesus Heals a Paralytic". Chapter 3 begins with "A Man with a Withered Hand". As I read through these first three chapters the only thing I could think about was the worksheet answers I had read only hours before this.
Jesus loved people, and therefor He helped people. He didn't help people out of pity or because it was His duty, He did it because He LOVED PEOPLE. He loved all kinds of people. He loved those with unclean spirits, those who were ill, those who were diseased, those who were demon possessed, those with physical deformities, those with disabilities. He loved everyone and therefor He helped anyone who would allow Him to.
The kids in our program have been taken out of some pretty bad situations. Many of them carry strong similarities to the people Jesus helped in the Gospels.
Far too often as Christians we put the "helping" part of Christianity on the back-burners. We will donate money, go to church, worship, and truly mean it with all our hearts! But the going out, cleansing the unclean, healing the sick, praying for the possessed, is something we seem to forget. Why do we need to do this? Because of love. Because of an overwhelming, unimaginable, unbelievable, amount of love that we have been shown. Once we can truly comprehend how much Christ did for us, how much He really loves us, it is impossible to resist sharing this love with others. So maybe our lack of helping isn't because we don't feel it necessary, but because we haven't fully comprehended Christ's love for us. If you truly want to help others, first work on yourself. Dive into the word, explore who God is, discover His love for us. Helping others will become a side effect of the love you uncover.
My prayer for myself this semester, is that I can keep reminding myself of this love I have been blessed with so that I can better serve. If my goal is to serve out of myself and my own love and strength, I will fail. 100% of the time I will fail. My mom always tells me to "do something so great, that it is doomed to failure, unless God be in it". Unconditionally loving and helping hundreds of kids all day, 7 days a week, is not an easy task. Me accomplishing that is for sure doomed to failure. UNLESS, God be the center of it. Because when God is the center of it, when it's His love pouring out of me, His hands working through me, His feet walking me around, then it will be a successful task.
Search for His never-ending love. Take hold of it and never let go. Let yourself become full of Christ's love. Become overflowing with His love. Pour this love out to everyone you come in contact with.
Love and be Loved.