slice: (n) a part, portion, or share
A few weeks ago when I was in Ann Arbor to play for the worship band at my church, I was asked to share my "slice of life" with the church. Yesterday was the day. I believe the intro goes like this: "Every week we invite a member from New Life Church to come up here and share what God's been doing in their life. And here today to share a slice of her life is Amelia Klos."
"Good morning!
My name is Amelia Klos. I am part of the "graduated from college and now live at home with my parents" new life team. That's not a real new life team, though maybe it should be…
I graduated from UofM just a few months ago with my bachelor's degree in architecture and am living with my parents for the summer BECAUSE in 3 weeks I am moving to La Union, Honduras.
During my 5 years of college God has orchestrated a phenomenal but seemingly "random" series of connections in my life. Those connections led to great friendships and incredible adventures.
While picking up a friend at a sorority party I met, my now boyfriend, Andrew Boyd. The next day we bumped into each other again at that same friend's tailgate party. He talked to me the entire morning about one thing, Honduras. At the end of the conversation he said I should go on this trip he was planning there the next summer. I looked at him and told him he was crazy.
Four months later the two of us sat in my parents' living room while Andrew tried to convince my mom that I would not be kidnapped in Central America.
I spent the summer of 2009 in La Union, Honduras as a part of the "2009 Honduras Research Team." It was my first out of country experience and I had no idea what to expect. There were 22 students on the research team. Most of us were from UofM and quite a few from New Life. We lived at a church compound in town. La Union is a small rural town in the mountains. There, you are hours from a paved road, there is no such thing as a street address and it is anyone's guess whether or not the water or power will be working that day. Still I fell in love.
We spent every day from sun up to sun down hiking around the even smaller surrounding villages conducting research. We had to interview every person in every town surrounding La Union. In other words, we had a lot of talking in Spanish to do, a language very few of us spoke.
So, we hired translators. They were the 6th and 7th grade students from the private bi-lingual school in town. The school is affiliated with the church we lived at and the students speak fluent English and Spanish. It was obvious that these kids were the lucky ones in town. They either came from families could afford to send their kids to school or had found sponsors to help with tuition.
It was a privilege to spend the summer with them. Gloria and Nelsy were the girls I became closest with. We had a lot of hiking to do between houses, which left plenty of time for talk. I learned so much about their lives last summer and how drastically different age 13 looks like for them than it did for me. How for boys the alternative to school is work in the coffee fields and for girls its marriage. How when these girls finish school they will be the FIRST students in their town to complete all 12 years of high school. How even owning a book is a privilege. I found THIS out from Nelsy.
In a village called Quiscamote, Nelsy and I sat on a rock while we waited for our truck ride home. She showed me her drawings and told me about her friends, school and boys. I had a book in my bag for down times like this. She saw it and told me about books and how there are none for kids to read in La Union. My heart was broken.
Quiscamote was towards the end of the summer and a few weeks later my time in Honduras was over. I returned to school in the fall for my last year of college and was completely Honduras sick. I spent more time thinking about Honduras than searching for internships or jobs or grad schools. My heart was no longer in architecture, it was in Honduras. This feeling and distraction did not wear off as school continued like I hoped. In fact it got worse. God put Gloria and Nelsy on my heart and it was heavy. They were all I could think about for months. Architecture no longer seemed to matter, nothing did but going back there.
I kept in contact with a teacher from the school. I questioned him daily about teaching in Honduras. Again I found myself in my living room talking to my parents about Honduras. This time it was different and much more difficult. After 5 years and tens of thousands of dollars in student loans for architecture I wanted nothing more than to be in a "third world country…" as a teacher.
After a few long hard months of prayer, soul searching, and talking with my parents, I applied, interviewed and was offered a job. It took me about a half a second to accept the job I was so excited. But my plans in Honduras do not end there. Architecture will always be a part of me and it is not something I will give up on. My career in architecture is just getting a unique start. The conversation with Nelsy made a lasting impression on me and so I am co-leading a project to build a library in La Union next summer. To bring books to kids who have none.
3 weeks from today I will be getting on a plane back to Honduras. I will be teaching 5th grade at Vida Abundante Christan School in La Union.
And that's a slice of my life!"
