Transcript:  

Intro:

We walked into the house and it's so bad. It's so bad.

Why We Are Here:

Hey, my name is Karen Bates and in May of 2023, my family and I sold all of our stuff in our home and came out here to the jungles. Of Mexico to start a school in our refuge for youth. We lived here for about a year and then we went back to the United States to do some fundraising for the next phase of this project.

And I am here preparing for a group that's coming to volunteer to do some building. Thanks for being on this journey with us.

The Trip Back

We up at 3:00 AM to make it to the airport on time. We had been gone for five months. We had originally thought we would just be in Utah for two weeks for my kids' weddings. I had two of my older kids get married, but it turned into a five month trip. We ended up staying in Texas for a while as we tried to find the resources and things we needed in order to keep moving forward with all of this.

So we're excited to back and see our friends and how.

My friend Johanan picked us up at the airport and our first stop was Cobel to get ourselves a dryer. We're super excited. Our friend, Callie Ramall, our next door neighbor in Pleasant Grove had a son come out, and he mentioned how hard it was when our clothes would get all wet because of the humidity or because it would rain, and they just never seemed to get quite dry.

And so she was amazing and got us a dryer. We're waiting to check out. We are so excited to get that machine.

What We Found

So we made it to Solferino, it's been a long day. Got up at three and I'm extra tired, but it's... I wasn't sure what to expect on the drive here. I just got more and more sad. My friend was telling me about some of the kids that were in the school and some of the choices they've made and that just made, I just felt like a punch in my gut kinda feeling, you know?

And there's still some that are doing great, but it's just hard to see so much potential sometimes and then see it...because of different circumstances... not... Land then we got here, the, the road is even worse than when we left. It was so hard to get in here.

I don't know how we're gonna be in and out until we fix this road. We walked into the house and it's so bad. It's so bad. There's mold's everywhere. Uh, but there's just mold everywhere. So we have to just get everything cleaned up and it's just so humid. Josh's violin... the glue came off and so I hope that we can repair it.

He's really sad about it. The TV looks like it's not working and it's just looking pretty bad. The dogs were super happy to see us. they got very excited. So that was happy. The kids have been super excited to see the dogs. I'll show you inside.

I'm gonna wash my hands after this.

It's day two of our time here in Mexico. We ended up sleeping at a friend's house last night because our house was just so, we weren't sure if it was moldy, but we didn't wanna risk it, and so we decided to go and she let us stay. She has a couple of boys and we stayed in their room and her boys slept in her room

We ate breakfast over there and came out here to start getting the house clean and ready. Yesterday was super hard. I think we just were not prepared for just how quickly things get rotted here, you know, or moldy just because of the humidity and the heat. And so it just felt almost like symbolically after all of the sacrifice we've made and that it's all just kind of gone to ruin.

Have We Done Any Good?

It kind of felt like that, especially after hearing the kids' stories... a similar to the feeling we would get when we would return to that orphanage that we visited. And then we'd hear who had left and why and some of their experiences. And you just, it's like a feeling of, "Could I have done more or what if I had said this?"

You know, some guilt, which I know isn't good because everybody's in God's hands and we can only do what we can do and we just have to be happy with opportunities we're given and blessed with and love wherever we go. It was this emotional weight and then plus seeing the house and all of the efforts we've been trying to put into it and have they even done any good?

Are we seeing any fruits of any of this? And I think the kids were feeling that heaviness as well. I know there've been troopers. With all of the stuff they kept trying to like see a positive side, there were tears, uh, but with a smile. And so everybody's been awesome. I'm so proud of them. But it is, I think that's the hardest part is seeing their pain too.

So I just feel like sometimes you make these choices and, and there's this regret, like, what if I hadn't done this, would they be happier? Would people be happier? I'm grateful for the lessons we've learned so far. And I know that there's, there's purpose in all of this and all of these important lessons we are learning through these experiences.

Um, but sometimes there is this sense of like, man, if I could go back... especially last night, like I was up at three in the morning with just a feeling of regret in my heart. Watching my kids sleep and thinking about the things that they sacrificed and gave up. And feeling like they're in ruins and the, the difficult life that we've kind of have chosen for ourselves and just feeling guilty that I made those choices... that they are suffering, that they're struggling.

And I do think they're learning a lot. And I, I wanna kind of remember that too, like life is, is hard and it's good to kind of learn these lessons, but I don't know, the violin too was kind of...you know, Josh has his dream of playing the violin and he was in an orchestra and then we moved here and then now his violins is ruined

He doesn't have a teacher and he is not in an orchestra. I think that's makes it particularly painful. Always my intent was to start something really cool here that they could be a part of, but it's taking a while and, but if we hadn't come out, what if I could rewind three years and we could have not made this decision? It's this feeling of, "What have we done?"

I prayed, I went to bed and I listened to this podcast called Unshaken Saints. The podcast host said, "There is a light, if we can just remember that during the storm and the hard things, that there's a light, and sometimes we only see it in the very far distance, but the miracles don't happen until after that."

I happened have read or the morning before about faith and how miracles happen after the trial of your faith. And so those things really helped. I felt a lot more courage after that and. This morning we got up, we came out here to start working. I was able to be more cheerful for the kids and they're being awesome and, and getting the house ready.

We have some guys on the roof right now putting in some extra solar panels so that we have enough electricity and yeah, I think it's gonna be okay. It was just a very, very rough day.

New Perspective

Hey, it's the evening of day two and we got quite a bit accomplished today in the house. Dallin got the stove all cleaned. It was so moldy and gross and rusty, and he really got it looking brand new pretty much. And I got the fridge cleaned out, still gonna do the freezer tomorrow, and ost of the dishes washed.

Uh, Josh cleaned a bathroom and the one of the bedrooms really nicely. He also got the books and dusted them off, got all the stuff off of them, polished the bookshelf. And then James was able to get another bathroom cleaned, also worked on the bookshelf. Got all of the spiderwebs top of the walls.

Joy cleaned off a bunch of things that were in a box that were all gross. She had to go through it, throw some things away. Her and Coen did that and dusted a bunch of the stuff, and took the sheets off the beds. Um, she did find a lot of surprises... that was tricky. So we would just kind of be cleaning something and some huge spider or bug would come out and we'd scream, and then it'd be hard to get back to work.

But after a little break, we'd be able to do it again. So she had a few jump scares, but she was amazing. They're all amazing. I just have such incredible kids. I'm so proud of them. And so it ended up...I think part of my sadness yesterday was feeling that I was doing my kids a disservice, you know, like on accident.

I had brought them into the situation and, and we gave up a lot and what's coming of it? Then watching them yesterday and how resilient they're being. It just makes me so proud of them. And I think even though things are hard, they're learning a lot from these experiences too. So that made my mother heart happy.

So feeling much better today, starting to feel like things are coming together. Not nearly as many things were ruined as we thought. Um, it's yesterday when we walked in, it just felt like everything was so we're just gonna have to throw everything away. So, um, you know, I was feeling symbolically that. All the sacrifice had been, um, in ruins and now I'm starting to feel like all this, like cleaning up feels a little bit like symbolic too, of how um, we are able to pick back up after a, a hard thing.

And so, um, I'm just feeling super grateful. So, um, we'll see how tomorrow goes.