A Reflection on 10 Years at Bosco

     Sorry it's been a few days since my last post.  I hope this one makes up for it.  I thought rather than telling what I have been doing the past few days, I would change it up and write more of an "article".
     Why have I been coming back to Jamaica for 10 years?  On some levels that seems like a simple question to answer, but on others it isn't very easy.  If you were to ask me back in 2004, the first year I came down here, if I would still be coming, I would have said my trips would only last for as long as I was a student at Wright State.  For those who don't know, my first 3 trips were with Wright State and a group of 20 others.  As I stated previously, although I dragged my feet to come back in 2004, some friends talked me into coming, and I realized 3 days into my trip that I wanted to come back again and again.
     It was sometime during my 2nd trip that a boy asked me if I could stay for Christmas.  He was a boy I had gotten close to.  He really missed home and he just wanted someone to spend Christmas with him.  I obviously had already made plans to return home with the WSU group and I was not going to be able to stay for Christmas.  I told him that, but I said that I could try for the next year.
     The year of my third trip was somewhat of a trying time for me being able to come back.  In March of that year, Fr. Chris, the Campus Minister at WSU passed away.  I vividly remember the night I found out about it.  It was a Saturday evening and I was in my apartment at school.  Yes, it was a sudden death and it was unexpected, but the thing that bothered me the most was that something inside of me said that I may not get chosen to go back to Jamaica again now that he was gone.  The last conversation he and I had one-on-one was during my second trip, he said that he could see me doing mission work once I was done with school since I was so good with the kids.  Now that he was gone, there was no one to make sure my name was on the list.  It ended up being true that I was not selected initially for the trip since I had already been twice and the trip was so popular that they wanted more people to experience the trip.
     I was determined to still make a trip on my own though, for Christmas.  I hadn't yet started to make concrete plans for a trip of my own when I got an email one day saying that someone had to back out and that I was next in line.  I was so glad to hear that.  When I went in right away to pay my deposit, I asked Joan about staying for an additional 2 weeks for Christmas at my own expense.  She checked with Mimi and Susan and it ended up being fine, and I did just that.
     My trips really have been an evolution over the past decade, and for a while, I never knew if the time I was spending at Bosco would be my last.  I can't pinpoint really why I have a longing to come back year after year.  I do know that for a little while, I wanted to convince myself that I was making a difference, even though I knew I was.  I didn't want to be "just another volunteer".  These boys see and meet so many people over the years, and a very large majority of them only come once, so they start to develop a friendship with people only to have the volunteers leave mere days later.  I have sometimes thought that it's almost like a zoo: people come to see the kids, experience a little about what they go through, then return to their lives back home.  Now I'm not here to judge or to say that the experiences people who visit here have aren't real because they are, I just personally wanted the boys to have some consistency, and I knew that If I came back every Christmas that they could depend on that consistency.
     When I first started coming here, I never knew from one year to the next what was happening at Bosco or how the boys were doing.  Social Media didn't exist at that time, and even if it were to have existed, the facility definitely wasn't outfitted with the means to be able to keep in touch.  The place only had one phone line, and if I wanted to email home, I had to wait in line with the 19 other students after the office closed and write home on the dial-up line that was also the single shared phone line.  Fast-forward to now, I can pretty much daily know what is going on with the boys.  There is high-speed wireless on the compound, and with the advent of Social Media, I am kept up to date with everything that goes on.
     I have also had the privilege to keep in touch with boys who have long left the gates of Bosco because they are now on their own working hard to make a living for themselves.  Believe it or not, the first boy I ever met here on the very first day is the one I keep in touch with the most.  It has been really great to watch him grow up from a 13 year old boy to now 22 and watch him and help him through his struggles of living on his own.  I have seen him learn from his mistakes, and every time I talk to him on the phone, I am so proud of the man he has become.  I don't doubt that I have had a strong hand in the person he has become to this day.  How powerful is that?
     I have seen hundreds of boys come through the gates of Bosco, and for a large majority of them, I don't know what happens to them.  They run away, they are sent home, they are kicked out, or whatever.  The good ones however, stay, learn a trade, and leave this place with a certificate of training and hopefully get jobs that will better their lives and their family lives.  The ones I keep in touch with know that I still come back every Christmas.  Now, they come and visit me at Bosco.  I know of at least 3 past boys if not more who will be coming back on Christmas to see me.  How awesome.  I know that some of the boys take my annual visit for granted and see me as just someone who comes and gives them stuff every year, but they eventually realize that my visits are more than that.  I could be home for Christmas, but (probably against my family's best wishes) I continue to come back year after year.
     I still can't get over the fact that there are about 4 or so boys who have been youth here since before my first trip.  10 years or more is a long time to be here and I have been able to see them grow up from 6-8 year olds into the boys they are now.  I can't wait to be able to keep in touch with them once they leave these gates.
     My trips here are only usually a little more than 2 weeks a year, but anyone who knows me would think I have lived a lifetime down here.  It sure feels like that to me.  It is so bizarre how a 2 week annual trip can have such an impact on the way I live my everyday life.  I don't think a day passes where I don't talk about "Jamaica this, or Jamaica that".  It's not quite to the point of obsession, but some might think that.
     As I said before, there was a time when I never knew what year would be my last year, so I always tried to make my trips count, and I tried to spend every waking moment with the boys.  I still don't know when my last trip will be if ever, but I don't worry myself with that.  I just take each year as it comes to me because I know that I have already personally made a difference in many many lives, and each following year that I am able to continue that is just icing on the cake.
     Well, the next few days are important because we will be getting ready for the Christmas Festivities.  Coming here now 8 years for Christmas, I know the drill.  I have earned my Elf Ears as Santa's Helper and I have really been able to experience the true meaning of Christmas.  One could say that it gets very repetitive from Christmas to Christmas, and the pictures I bring back show that...they all look the same each year, just different boys.  There is something however that still brings me to tears each Christmas, being able to hand out small gift sacks to the boys full of donated items that most other kids their age would just throw away, and also being able to serve them a big Christmas Lunch.  They are so happy and excited for the little things that they get, and it is only on Christmas Day that I am able to see that joy they have knowing that they are getting more here on Christmas than they would if they were not here, and it is such an honour to be a part of that year after year.
     In closing, I just want to thank everyone for the support I have gotten over the years.  I purposely don't ask people for much help for my trips.  They are my trips.  I have found that through sharing my experiences, people feel compelled to give, either monetarily or through donations I bring down for Christmas, and I am thankful for that.  It is my hope that I can continue to keep coming down here for as long as I am able, be that 1 year more or 10 years more or maybe even 20 years more.  I have built friendships and relationships that even if this place isn't around in 20 years, I know I still have a home to return to at Christmas for as long as I am welcome.  Good Night.  Stay tuned for more about my trip.