Stories Behind the Advent Offering: She Matters
KARYN PHILLIPS
Yacquelin wasn’t that child that ran up to us the second that we arrived each morning to Ocho de Octubre, the small community outside La Esperanza, to work on our assigned house for the week. She wasn’t that child that, when sunglasses and nail polish and coloring pages were brought out for the kids’ enjoyment, pushed past the others to get first pick. She wasn’t one of the first children that I noticed because she didn’t demand the attention that came more naturally to some of the others. Yacquelin was the girl that stood quietly in the background with a timid, but warm smile. She was the one that waited for her turn patiently while the rest of the kids got their nails painted. She was the girl that wore a fleece jacket with the hood hanging slightly over her eyes, beads of sweat dripping down her nose, on the hottest work day because she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
I think I was so drawn to Yacquelin because I saw so much of myself in her. I was that painfully shy child that stood on the sidelines, not wanting to be seen while simultaneously wanting to be seen. I think that’s why the highlight of my week in Honduras was sharing a refreshing soda with her after a long, exhausting day of work. I would attempt conversation with her in my broken Spanish and she would smile, no doubt laughing internally as I butchered her native language, and respond quietly. By the end of the week, Yacquelin would greet me with a hug and a kind smile. As we walked the neighborhood, visiting old friends and making new, she would be right there at my side. Few words were exchanged, but there was an unspoken comfort and connection between me and this patient little ten-year-old.
That is the reason I continue to go on trips to Honduras. The human connection between me and Yacquelin, and others like her, is what compels me every time. There is so much beauty in those moments when we have the opportunity to see the imago dei in others. Those interactions in which two people can both see and be seen- that is why I think that it matters. The warm hugs matter. The shared sodas matter. The relationships, both old and new, matter. Yacquelin, that quiet little girl on the sidelines with whom I look forward to reconnecting, matters.
Karyn works with kindergartners by day and parents the freshly teenaged Payton Grace by night. When she's not reiterating classroom rules or employing deep breathing techniques, she loves reading, hiking, swimming, playing board games, traveling, and continuing her daughter's good movies and music education rooted in John Hughes and David Bowie.