Here I am, a nineteen year old American girl, chauffeuring fifteen of my former college classmates around some of the poorest areas of Mexico in a van whose sides declare “3ra Iglesia Presbitariana Ministerio de Fe” in peeling white paint and whose back windshield sports a bumper sticker heralding Jesus Christ as the prescription for life.

It all seems so normal to me, yet, looking back, I could have never guessed the road upon which I would be walking, or driving a van, as it were. A year ago I was an innocent college freshman attending the College of William and Mary, a prestigious, high class university in moneyed Virginia. I thought Christians were some sort of deranged, possibly dangerous, brain-washed cult. I spoke about ten words of Spanish. I had never done a day’s worth of work in my life. I said things like “Oh my God, I can’t believe she’s wearing that sweater with that skirt.” But today, I was a Christian missionary, a college dropout, and an experienced and hard-working concrete house builder. I worked eight-hour shifts in the hot sun laying rows of block and mixing vast amounts of concrete. I slept on a hard, uneven concrete floor and had two pairs of pants, one for going out and one for sleeping in. I had friends named Marta, Cheque, and Jorge and more adoptive Mexican family, than blood-related American family. I said things like “how many wheelbarrows of rock do we need for this batch of concrete?” and translated Pastor Alfredo’s sermons for the Americans who visited our ministry. And I smiled more.

A girl in the back row of the van calls “They have cowboy boots there! Can we stop?!” and I am called back to where I am and realize that, without my guidance, the van has managed to steer itself to our destination. As the parking lot attendants guide us towards an unoccupied parking spot, I turn my thoughts towards my next adventure: parking this enormous vehicle, and, as I have learned to do with each new and extraordinary task that presents itself to me each day, meet it with a smile and patience.