These were the wise words which emerged from a fortune cookie I cracked open with my host family last Friday night. It made me think how true it is, that in giving, we receive.
My host family, Roger and Colet Mitchell and their twin girls Chelsey and Paige have given so much to myself and Elaine over the past month, it has been entirely overwhelming.
They have given us such a warm welcome and a genuine interest in who we are.
Roger has given me his Republican views to chew over at dinner time and plenty of google map chat. Colet has given me ice cream cake by the bucket load, delightful cool water from her machine and some swanky afternoons at the country club. Chelsey has given me her bathroom (little does she know it because she’s in New York) and Paige has given me her waffles in the morning time.
Their kindness and hospitality has been outstanding, I simply couldn’t have hoped for a better host family. Their generosity to us and commitment to the program is something which inspires me. Year after year they open up their home to the “Irish interns,” and it is all out of the goodness of their heart. Their giving to us makes me want to give to others. I can never repay their kindness, I can only struggle to express my appreciation but even that seems pretty lame. And yet I have hope in the manifesto of a little school boy named Trevor McKinney (in the film Pay it Forward). He came up with a great plan to change the world by paying forward an act of kindness to three people, who in turn would pay it forward to three others. His words summate my thoughts.
When someone does you a big favor, don't pay it back … Pay It Forward.”
I could never repay the Mitchells for their kindness to me, but I endeavor to pay forward their hospitality if I ever get the chance.
For it is in giving to others, in giving our love and our lives, that we will see the greatest change in society and the greatest change in ourselves.
