Another year growing as a servant!

Hola! Yet another year and another new and incredibly powerful experience for me and the entire group. As you can gather from the other posts in the blog, we engaged in a broad variety of activities each bringing its own joy and opportunity to connection with each other and the people of Mexico. I'll start with - what a great trip! I am eager to see the now 43 year old relationship continue to grow with each new year and each new group's visit to the Mision de Armistad/Mission of Friendship in Merida, Mexico.

I cherish this week of reflection and community with the students each year. I enter the week with some exposure to the ABST activity but also having a similar anticipation and uncertainty as the students wondering how this particular year and group will make use of the week and impact the community we travel to visit.

I am so proud of our students and was unbelievably impressed with their maturity, compassion, depth of introspection and self-awareness, and desire not only to learn about the people and culture we were immersed in but to learn about themselves and from each other during the journey through the week.

Even after many years of travel and participation, I was again moved by this experience. The student leadership was taken to a new level  this year and they truly ran the show. What a blessing to be able to be a participant and observe from the side the growth in character, confidence, awareness of nuances in communication, and care for others, among so many observable personal developments, that our students gained from the trip. These notable changes in just a week were accompanied by many internal changes that the students voiced through the very personal reflections we had each evening.  The cohesiveness of the group allowed for open dialogue at a level I have not seen in environments beyond these powerful ABST trips.

Thank you to our group members, to Janet for her immeasurable contributions, and to the people of Mexico. I have been blessed to have these individuals and this experience as part of my life.  The Mission of Friendship was a terrific environment for the students to reach out from. Our daily mix of service and cultural immersion kept us busy, engaged, entertained and often times in awe and tired.

During one early reflection, Tricia Pipkin (the Mission Director) helped us make the distinction in our role as servants - sharing with each other on equal ground in mutual respect and mutual benefit, in contrast to considering or role as helper or fixer - both positioning us a individuals with greater gifts to share and there to assist the needy or broken. The Gannon team and staff of the mission quickly and consistently found that place and role as servant and I am confident did receive as much or more than we gave.

God bless the group, the children, adults and elderly we encountered, and all those who serve that community every day in our absence. May we return next year and every year to share and receive the blessings of our family in the Yucatan.

Keith Taylor, President and official group accompanier, Gannon ABST Mexico 2014