rachael & raquel: parte uno

familia - [fah-mee'-le-ah]
spanish for "family".

Last week I got to spend two whole days with these awesome chicas. When I met Rachael and Raquel, only a few days after moving here three years ago, they were high school girls beginning their sophomore year here in the DR. Now, they are young women, high school graduates with plans of attending colleges in the States.

(Raquel, Rachael and me hiking a waterfall last week.)

I recently asked them if they'd be willing to write a little something about what Young Life meant to them during their high school career so that I could share it with all of you. Here is my friend Raquel's response:

"I remember always looking forward to attend Young Life. It was a place where I was taught to always love others and be obvious about my faith in Christ. In fact, Young Life wasn’t a place. It was family. It IS family. It is only with family that I will be myself to a point where I am positive that no matter what I do or say I will always be loved. This is how I felt with the Young Life crew.

At Young Life I could always count on anyone for anything which taught me to always put others before myself, just like our leaders had done with me.

Just thinking about Young Life makes me feel an incomparable joy. It was only at Young Life where it was proven that being a Christian isn’t boring, where our leaders not only taught us, but encouraged us to be leaders everywhere we went to, where our leaders would come up with the craziest, coolest and most fun activities with the pursuit of getting other teens to come to Young Life and hear about Jesus.

If one of our leaders' purposes was to have those who were Christian keep developing a more intimate relationship with Christ, then they can be sure that they accomplished their goal with me."

I've had the opportunity over the past three years to spend lots of time with these two and others. To be with them in the ups and downs of all of our lives. We have shared an incredible amount of laughter, and also our fair share of tears. Like Raquel wrote so beautifully, we have become a family. Young Life kids and Young Life leaders; friends; sisters in Christ.

(written by Emily)