Drew Lund's Mexican Adventures: Home

Drew Lund's Mexican Adventures: Home:

My last days at the Rancho Sordo Mudo were quiet. After graduation on Saturday, all of the students went home for the summer, and many of the staff left right on their heels. In just a few hours the ranch was transformed from a high-energy melting pot of adolescent emotions to an almost eerily quiet place of calm reflection.



I had almost every minute of my last 48 hours alone, and that being the first time I really stopped moving for the past four months, I was able to think back on the most eventful third of a year in my life up to this point. From adventuring in the Mexican wilderness to exploring Ensenada on my days off to sweating 15 gallons a day for three weeks in Sinaloa, I’ve had more crazy experiences in the past 113 days of my life than the previous 6845 days combined. But without question, what’s going to sick with me for longer than everything else is the children at the ranch.



Years after I’ve forgotten the taste of cow intestines, head, tongue and rattle snake, I will remember my meals of plain beans and rice with Saúl, Alexis and Axel. Long after the literally breathtaking view from the highest point for miles of the rolling hills spreading out in every direction around me untouched by man canopied by the perfectly clear blue skies and beaming Mexican son have faded from memory, I’ll be thinking about the hours spent in the plain, worn-down, paint-chipping walls of the boy’s dorm wrestling on the stained and spotted carpet with Rubén, Fernando, Ricardo and Avi. When the faces of the friends I made and shared hours of taco trips and movie nights with are nothing more than blurry images in my mind, I will see clear as day the squinty-eyed face of Orlando grinning from ear to ear as he runs across the room to give me a hug as soon as I walk in the door.



I wish my time at the ranch wasn’t over. I wish the four months I had would have gone slower instead of flashing past me in the blink of an eye. It’s hard to accept I won’t get to be a part of those kid’s lives any more, but I know that God will continue to use them to teach and shape me for the rest of my life. It’s time for me to move on the next stage of His plan for my life, and after the truly amazing time I’ve had at the ranch, I can’t wait to see what He has in store for me in the future.



As I sit here in the San Diego airport waiting to catch my flight back to Washington, the phrase “home is where your heart is” comes to mind. I’ve always thought of it as a cheesy phrase, but now I see it in a whole new light. Even though I may never get to live at RSM again, I know that wherever God puts me in the future, whatever He has me doing, I will always have a home at Rancho Sordo Mudo.