The mountains were especially beautiful today in
Denver. They were vibrant with greens
and blues interlaced with streams of white snow. The snow was coming down the slopes as though
it were interlocking fingertips with the tree line. Peace and love have been coming up in the
strangest places, and I can’t help but be just thankful.
Two months ago I got an email about being a part of the
Fulbright-Hays program to learn about everything Turkish. It is a trip that’s entirely paid for because
I have the unique and amazing privilege to be in front of an audience that
allows me to explore the world with them within four walls—to learn about who
they are in the dizzying experience of living.
I can remember cleaning the chalkboard in Mrs. Hannon’s 3rd
grade classroom during homework detention deciding that I was going to be a
teacher. You see, I purposefully didn’t
do my homework because I wanted extra time to be around a woman who made me
feel good about what I had to offer the world—even if it meant taking a soapy
sponge to a smooth slate. I get to
experience Turkey this month because my teacher helped me to be more than what
I thought I had within my heart.
That’s the point of this trip—to bring back an entire
civilization to a group of gaping-toothed smiles and to help them know they can
be more than what they think they can.
14 of us total (6 current Denver Public Schools teachers, 6 pre-service
teachers from Metropolitan State University, and 2 professors from the same)
will be gallivanting around cities and sites that could be covered with history
book pages written about the stories they’ve seen. So, here I sit next to Lindsey—her hands
folded in her lap as she giggles at the movie she’s watching and I can feel the
peace and love beginning to unfold from the onset of our terrific Turkish
travels.
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