Michael Andrew: “A Life-Changing Experience”
February 23, 2016 | By
By Michael Andrew, World Junior Champion
With the New Year in full swing for several weeks now, I wanted to share a life-changing experience that my family was fortunate to be apart of right before the New Year. From December 27-29, my family and I went to Tijuana, Mexico with HopeSports, a nonprofit organization with the purpose of uniting athletes to bring hope to the world.
HopeSports provide athletes & teams a wonderful opportunity to give back, while creating incredible bonds with each other. The mission of this trip was – alongside other athletes and friends – to build a home for a family. Where we were building in Tijuana many families are without homes, being forced to live in cardboard boxes or to find scraps and put together whatever they can to make living quarters.
As we drove up to the build site I was surprised to see how much joy the people living there had, especially when we come from having everything we ever need to survive. It’s crazy how we take what we have for granted. When you arrive to the site, all of the materials needed to build the home are there along with the concrete slab already in place. In just the first day we were able to complete the entire house, leaving just some final touches for the second day of building. We were all amazed at what can be accomplished in one day without any building skills!
The second day was dedicated to taking the family shopping for much needed groceries. With everything complete and the family back from shopping we had a ceremony where we passed the keys around giving a few words of love and encouragement. There was not a single dry eye… What blew me away so much was how God draws us in to help and give hope to a family in need and in the process lifts our own spirits. What I mean by that is this, we went there to help a family and give them love, but in doing that, the joy they show in having nothing is so eye opening to how blessed we are and to be so loved and have what we have.
This trip was such an incredible life changing experience for me and has really encouraged me to step out of that comfort zone we all love so much to be a loving friend to those around us and be truly grateful for what we have!
Michael Andrew
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