‘Sonder – n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”
John Koenig
So, life update, this past July I went back to the Holy Land (Palestine and Israel). I had the opportunity of leading a 1 month team. It’s hard to imagine it was only a week ago today that I was still there. My experience going back was so, so much more beautiful and amazing than I thought it ever would be, but it also broke my heart in many ways too.
Friday July 21, 2023
One of my hardest and yet best days on this trip was going to an orphanage called, The Crèche. It is located in the city of Bethlehem. This orphanage broke my heart. My eyes were opened to a new injustice I never saw before. An aching injustice I’ll never fully be able to comprehend. Newborns are abandoned in trash cans, children are forced into a religion from the moment they’re born, fathers raping their kids, and babies growing up to adults who can’t be adopted. What broke me the most is the reality that these children won’t ever get adopted because it’s not allowed. It’s illegal here.
The Crèche was one of the reasons I got this tattoo. The tattoo is written in mandarin Chinese and it says, “tell me your story.” Experiencing this orphanage brought me many memories back to my own adoption story. A story that some people would call “one of the lucky” or even “a miracle.” Many people who are close to me know I was adopted when I was 5 years old, but many people don’t know how complicated the adoption systems really are around the world. They’re very broken. After I left the orphanage I was in awe of how I am, “one of the lucky” or “a miracle” to have been adopted, and to be able to have the life that I have now. I will forever remember looking at these kids with tears in my eyes and wondering why they can’t be the “lucky ones too.”
This tattoo is a reminder for me of how I want to always have humility when listening to someone’s story because you never know what people have gone through in their life.
I had each one of the members in my host family write a character so that I would have their handwriting. The first character though is the only one that is not part of the family. This selfless, compassionate, driven and beautiful woman below helped me more than I could ask of anyone. She taught me what it means to be a leader. What it means to show humility to every human being, what it means to embrace the uncomfortable, and what it means to challenge my own beliefs and values so that I can see new perspectives.
Hearing someone else’s story always has taught me how to love more. I don’t want to know people on a surface level, I want to know their story. I feel like many people go through life meeting people and only knowing them on a surface level. As humans we all share similar emotions that come from our own stories. Like joy, love, comfort, loss, desire, confusion, sadness etc. but we don’t explain why we feel the way we feel until we start unfolding our own story.
What I love about living in different countries is the many stories that I hear and I take them back home and they start shaping who I become as a person. One of the most important things I’ve learned from being back in the Holy Land and my past couple years of traveling is that, love can simply come from sitting across a beautiful human being and listening to their story.
Caili
Withhold Nothing 