Beautiful Journey

Beautiful Journey

GDF. ​Grace. ​(2006)

BY: CG

CG at 55 I am fifty-five years old and can’t walk more than five miles without collapsing, so in other words I’m old. This is probably why I’ve received ‘Missionary of the Year’ for 2056, since the only winners of this award are old people. From a very early age, I always knew I wanted to become a missionary. I always thought I would be in Mexico helping children in need for just a few years. I never thought I would travel all over North and South America from the second I received my license to practice medicine. I first started my work as a pediatrician in Mexico, and not long after I married another pediatrician who was a missionary. Now we have two beautiful children who were with me, as a I received ‘Missionary of the Year’. I went through a lot of hardships in my life, doing the kind of work I do is not easy, but it’s the most rewarding work I’ve ever done, leaving my mark on so many children and families. Throughout my life, I have received many questions like “Why are you doing this?” or “How did it start?”, “How did you balance your work with your family?” My story is something that I just couldn't keep to myself, so I had to share it with the world. For some, this story will just be another story, but for others, this story will inspire them, change them, and allow them to see things differently. And because of that, I am required to tell my story.

Chapter 1. The beginning Let's start with the past, way before I was born. In 1992 both my parents moved to the United States from Mexico, and later accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in 1994. A few years later in 2001, I was born. From the very beginning of my life, the church has always been something very familiar to me. From a very early age, I always helped in Sunday School. I grew up in the Hispanic church, sang worship with my arms open wide as my parents did. When my parents went to events for our denomination, The Evangelical Covenant Church, I would always tag along. When I was 11 years old when I truly understood what Children's Ministry was. I would hear testimonies from all these important people about their experience in Children's Ministry and they work they’ve done.

I always saw my mother be a mother to the children in our church. I remember in my earliest years during the holiday time when the ​streets were covered in a blankets of snow,​ my mom would often buy extra presents for the kids of families who didn't have enough money to buy their own gifts. So in my earliest memories I have in the church and of my parents, I saw the love and care they had for children. Seeing people taking care and loving children naturally became my actions as well. When we ate at church, I would always make sure that my friends had dibs on the good food before the adults could snatch them. At the age of 12, I started changing diapers, and would help the younger kids use the bathroom. In my faith, we believe that God gives everyone a gift. From an early age, my parents always said my gift was to serve. It was known that I would serve children, I just didn't know in what capacity. I was in middle school when I took an interest in medicine, and it was in the church during a Sunday when a lady asked me what I wanted to do in life that I said, “I want to be a doctor for children”, not knowing the word “Pediatrician” existed. From then on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life, I wanted to become a missionary and help children medically.

The idea of becoming a pediatrician never changed, and when senior year came along, it was time to choose a major. At this point the mission was always the same, become a missionary and help children in need from different countries.​This dream pushed and pushed me​, so I went into North Park University in the fall of 2019 and majored in Biology with a Pre-Med track. After graduation in the Spring of 2023, I went into University of Chicago Medical School where I specialized in basic Pediatrics. After completing my residence program and getting licensed, I answered my calling. I went to Chiapas, Mexico where ​children’s skin was glued to their bones​ and where the​ weather attacked the

people with its bipolar mind.​ It was here that I fell in love with my culture though and where I met the love of my life who was another pediatric missionary from the same denomination. After being together for three years, we married in my hometown, Chicago. I had found someone who supported my mission. After serving seven years in Chiapas, Mexico, my husband and I decided to do work in other Latino countries. We served in Ecuador, Chile, Costa Rica, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Throughout our work, we brought in two beautiful children who traveled alongside us. As I’m writing this, the journey sounds beautiful and wonderful, but the​ road was not kind to us.​ To this day, I still feel as I’ve robbed my children from a normal life, and it’s still something I struggle with. When I would come back home to Chicago for a while and they would spend a day with their cousins, they would later ask me “why aren’t we in sports?” or “why don’t we have such a modern home like theirs?” As I took the challenge of starting my mission, I knew I would have to give up certain things up, like my daily showers, or air conditioning, but I was never prepared for those questions my children would ask, and that killed me emotionally and mentally. Growing up, I was a competitive swimmer for nine years and rowed collegiately. My father was a firm believer that one should be active and that it was important to exercise your body. But during my first years in Chiapas, Mexico were the biggest struggle my body has ever had to go through, having to wake up at four in morning to walk five miles so that the ​sun wouldn’t burn me. ​Then, I had to set up the medical campsite before seven because it was too dangerous to leave the medical campsite up all night long and work until six in the afternoon to walk another five miles back home was grueling. It took a year to finally get a bike but the tires would constantly pop due to the ​rocky road that attacked me ​whenever it got the chance, so there was no point in even using it.

What always kept me going though, was thinking of my parents. Although they were ordained ministers, it wasn’t a paid job until I was out in college. Both my parents had secular jobs and worked very hard to provide for the family. I would see my father coming back home from a night shift, limping from a hard day of work pushing it through as if his​ job didn't beat him​ and still giving me a ride to school in the morning. I would see my mom come back from work, with the groceries in her hand to cook us dinner. On those late nights walks going back home from the medical campsite, I could remember both my parents eyes, with dark bags under them but with the biggest smile and laughter coming out of their mouths as if they didn't spend hours doing gruelling work. I then think of their journey to the United

States and how they had to adapt to a new culture and learn a new language just as I did, and to this day I always tell myself, if my parents did it for decades, then so can I.

I want to believe that I had an impact on the world. That was the plan after all, but as I’ve grown up, I realized that, that shouldn’t be the mission. If you had a positive impact on one person, even if that person was yourself, you did good. Vaccinating more than 10,000 children and helping children get the right nutrition allowed all those children to pass the infant mortality rate. The work I did allowed for children to thrive, and allowed them to play with other children without the growing fear that a disease might pass through them. There was a new sense of safety in the villages I worked in, because they no longer had to fear that their children could get sick and pass away. Receiving the “Missionary of the Year” award feels great, but what was the true award was having parents come up to me with their children, thanking me for making a difference in their life, because that to me confirmed I was completing the mission God gave me.

Chapter 2. Holy Matrimony