Homesick

A friend sent me this quotation from Henri Nouwen's Creative Ministry, p. 75:

As long as we see only distasteful poverty, we are not really entitled to give. When, however, we find people who have truly devoted themselves to work in the slums and the ghettos and who feel that their vocation is to be of service there, we see that they have discovered hidden in the smiles of the children, the hospitality of the people, the expressions they use, the stories they tell, the wisdom they show, the goods they share, is so much richness and beauty, so much affection and human warmth, that the work they are doing is only a small return for what they have already received. In this respect we can better understand those many missionaries who, after living for years in the poorest circumstances, nonetheless became homesick for their missions as soon as they returned to their affluent country. It was not because they wanted to suffer more but because they had found a beauty in their people which they missed in their home community.

I've been in the US for a little more than three weeks and will be here for almost two weeks more, but I long to get back to Honduras, which is my home.  

Dulce Nombre Confirmation retreat, September 6, 2011