Service and Gratitude: How My Time with Youthlinc has Transformed My Life

By: Eva Mora

When I first signed on to do my first Youthlinc trip, I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing or even why. I had no real why. I signed on late in 2023 to the Cambodia 2024 team and no idea how much it would change my life. That same year I became a student body officer at my school. The fundraiser my school hosted each year brought me 40 hours of service in my own community in just a month. It was the most service I had done in a long time, and I realized it was one of the most joyous experiences of my life. I not only felt excited and happy to be helping others but also grateful for the opportunity to do it. In January of 2024 I began volunteering at a local elementary school, working with kids who spoke no English and who needed extra support in school. My only qualification was that I spoke Spanish fluently. During that experience I really began to explore aspects of gratitude that hadn't always crossed my mind like the fact that even though I myself had grown up in Mexico speaking Spanish I was also fortunate enough to have learned English. I had never struggled in school because of this, not like how these kids were. 

Fast forward some months of continuing to work in my own community and seeing not only change and growth in the people I was serving but also in myself, we were finally ready to travel. I turned 18 years old in an airport in San Francisco, this is when I began to feel weary and I wondered if I had made the right decision in traveling and joining the team. I tried to remind myself of the joy I had felt in prior months during the time I spent in that elementary school and during all the other opportunities of service I had. My first night in Cambodia felt like a fever dream, it was the farthest I had ever been from home. As I lay in bed that night, I was overtaken with anxiety and dread for what was to come. The 45-minute drive to the village felt like an eternity, I remember so vividly driving into the school grounds up this dirt path when a swarm of young kids ran to greet us. As soon as I saw them, I felt an overwhelming sense of not only peace but that same joy I had felt prior to the trip. 

Here I was thousands of miles away from my home and from the elementary school I had worked in and somehow the joy I felt was tenfold. The days that followed were like nothing I had ever experienced. It was in the span of 7 days that I learned the true meaning of service and how important it was. I saw kids who had nothing – hardly any food, small houses the size of our garages back home and a group of teachers doing their best to provide them an education in the smallest elementary school I had ever seen, yet they seemed so much happier than I could have expected. Their joy was contagious, and it spread to me and our team from the moment we arrived. It was like nothing I had ever gone through myself; it was over this week that I began to remember the poverty I had seen from the childhood I spent in Mexico. 

As I pondered my time in this village, I felt embarrassed that I seemed to have forgotten how blessed I truly was. Leaving this place we had spent so much time working on and getting to know was hard, but I left with two big takeaways – service and gratitude. In my young adulthood I chose service and gratitude as central pillars of my life. Not only to hold me up in joy but to also keep me grounded in my abundance. Youthlinc has solidified my belief in the power of service not only locally but abroad; it has transformed me and made my life that much more rewarding.