Mario and I love and embrace life, and as our relationship began to grow so did our need shared desire to help others. It had been manifesting itself waiting to surface at the right moment in a way that would allow us to facilitate a vehicle we could feed with energy from the love and compassion we had for each other and for our friends, family and others in our midst. At that time, we had found a loving and compassionate group of people at St. James, a small Episcopalian Church and had became willing participants in their many acts of kindness for those in need. We learned quickly that many who need the most are often right within your own community. We were witness to others not just speaking words. They were putting words into action. It was here that we began to hone and strengthen our innate abilities we would use one day to create our way of helping others.
The Church had an ongoing commitment with a local shelter. We signed up to personally provide and serve dinner for 35 homeless people. We were inspired to begin a yearly Thanksgiving drive to collect items for baskets that we would fill with all the ingredients a family would need to prepare a complete Thanksgiving dinner. At one point Mario and I along with our friend Todd, in his truck, were personally delivering 15 baskets to families in our communities. There was also money we raised to donate to hurricane victims, and sponsor a child in the Dominican Republic for a school outfit and books. We even signed up to help a parishioner feed triplets that had been born while Dad was deployed in Iraq. There is no greater feeling than the collective energies of others who have gathered to help those in need.
Our active participation in helping others taught Mario and I that we could donate more money than we may have initially thought and that combining your efforts with others, makes an even greater impact. For us though, the real gift that was starting to reveal itself was the human connection we were making with those for whom we were helping. We were beginning to see that often, many within our own circles have greater needs than you would may see on the surface and often are hidden behind the walls of homes you drive by that appear to be so together on the outside.
For every gift we were delivering, there were equally as many hugs from grateful and thankful recipients. Many would say
“I am so embarrassed to ask for help.”
Or ask; “How can I ever repay you?” to which we would respond;
“If we were in your situation, we would hope someone would do the same for us.” and “Once you are in a situation where you can help someone, pay it forward.”
Each of these experiences touched our souls and brought us closer to surfacing how we were going to do something different in our lives to help others.
During a trip to Ireland while standing in the middle of a large open field overlooking a magnificent landscape anchored by a large yet unassuming castle with a flag on its main tower piercing the sky, Mario said;
“How blessed are we to have such an opportunity, to travel, to share these experiences, to grow. I think it’s time to do more, time to tap into our own resources and help others.” To which I replied
“I could not agree more! How can we make this happen?”
Our journey to help others was beginning to surface. We waited for the next revelation to reveal itself.
Later that year as we were celebrating our Christmas Eve, it was approaching 3AM and were becoming tired from opening all of our gifts and decided to go to bed and resume opening in the morning.
“What is wrong with us?” I asked as we were turning off the lights to the tree, blowing out candles and heading towards our room.
“Think of how much money we spent for each other on our stocking stuffers alone not to mention the rest of the gifts.” To which Mario replied
“And to think of how much we spent collectively on our friends and family.” Almost simultaneously we replied; “Let’s figure out what that cost and we can use that as our starting point. We can find those others in need and use this money to help them instead.”
We determined we had spent around $3,000 and decided that going forward that would be our annual contribution to support a Holiday Mission that would help those in need. We would reach out to our friends, family and others to ask that in place of a gift for us that they make a donation to our mission.
When the Holiday season finally approached a year later, Mario and I had come to know Herbert, who was on the board of an orphanage in Costa Rica. He and others had created a home for children without parents or family. This home provided food, shelter, education and mental health services to 15 children ranging from newborn up to eight years old.
This was going to be the perfect way to kick off our official Holiday Mission. So in December of 2007 we sent out our first letter to our friends and family and before we knew it, checks began arriving in the mail. We had raised an additional $3,675. With our collective $6,675 in the account, we boarded our plane excited to deliver our gift to the children!
As the Vientos Navideños [Winter Breezes] known to Costa Rica in December prepared the country for the Summer Season, they gently guided us up the driveway to the orphanage. The tent was up, tables and chairs were set, balloons were being blown up, the cotton candy and ice cream machines were being prepared, the blow up play areas were beginning to reveal their shapes, trampolines were waiting to be jumped on and the children were beginning to arrive. As we approached the back yard, the first thing we looked for was the extensive swing-set play area that we paid to have built on the property. Tears of joy began to fill our eyes, it was greater than we had imagined!
As the festivities began, each child received a Santa’s hat, Clowns painted faces and made balloon animals and music filled the air. Each child’s anticipation was palpable. The party beginning and our lives would be forever changed from this wonderful experience.
As the children rushed from activity to activity they worked up a hunger just in time for the arrival of 34 happy meals from McDonald’s. There were 15 children in the home at the time, so we invited an additional 19 children from the impoverished area around the home to participate in the party. With bellies full, the doors opened from the small schoolhouse on the property to reveal Santa Clause surrounded by a floor full of gifts individually packaged with each child’s name. The children rushed Santa and began to hug him. The anticipation on their faces as they waited for their names to be called was priceless. After all of the gifts had been distributed, Santa asked Mario if he had some cash. Mario handed Santa a ten-dollar bill that Santa then held up in the air for all the children to see and said;
“Christmas is not about money or gifts. Each of you is a unique gift to this world. Each of you is special. You are loved. Never forget that. ” We collectively began to clap and hug one another. As the children rushed about playing once again on the swing-set, looking at their new gifts, enjoying cotton candy that was now all over their hands and faces, with smiles that gleaned with happiness!
It was time though for us to gather our things and say goodbye to everyone. At one point Mario approached me and said;
“Dan, do you have any money in your pockets?”
He gestured to his right as I looked to see a Mother and her two children who were from the surrounding community.
“Dan, the Mother approached me to thank us and let us know that she was not able to buy any thing for the children this year and had we not provided the gifts for her children they would have nothing. Dan, they have not even opened their gifts we gave them. They want to wait until Christmas Eve to open them, imagine?
I want to give her some money. “
I reached into my pocket and as I gave him everything I had, our eyes met and began to fill with emotion. With all we had been through to make this first mission a success, it was at that moment when we realized we had made a good decision.
