Cornerstone’s team started their trip by celebrating with the Murphy Town community at the Community Center dedication.
Read past blogs from this team and others at Team Updates – Many Hands Impact
How are we taught to invest our money? Diversify, right? Nobody tells you to put all of your eggs in one basket; a good financial advisor will never tell you to invest all of your money together. But what else do we invest in? I think most people’s immediate answer to this question would be their time.
Time is a loaded word; what comes with time? It depends on what your time is spent on, and it’s different for everyone. But no matter how you spend your time, many of us have an extreme abundance of it. After our jobs, our sports, and whatever else occupies our days we may feel as if we need more time, or think we are busy. And maybe sometimes we are, but we are blessed with so much time.
So, how are we taught to invest our time? We aren’t. Time is a given to us; we take it for granted. We diversify our money to keep it safe from the unknown. But we diversify our time to keep us occupied. Think of your time as a pie chart—each slice represents where your time goes—and this pie is ever fluctuating. Mission work requires every single slice of that pie. If you want to make a successful change in the community you’re interacting in, you need to experience full immersion.
Today was our first day being exposed to the natural state of the Great Abaco island. We visited multiple towns and significant structures throughout central Abaco. And over and over again the word time was said. In the context of our tour—visiting the wreckage of hurricane Dorian (4 years prior)—time was slow. Every bit of wreckage we saw was taking TIME to rebuild. Of course this comes with the island being secluded from any large manufacturing plants, and along with that rebuilding takes even longer. Materials being so expensive to import, along with a next to nothing exportation industry, leaves Abaco almost forgotten to the rest of the world.
This afternoon, after being exposed to the island and learning about cultural developments after the storm, we were privileged to attend an event at the Murphy Town Community Center. It was the grand opening for Many Hands For Abaco’s first project on the island. The majority of time I spent with the youth, being a seventeen year old, and I played of course but I also observed. My conclusion was that like their island, their buildings, and their community; these children need to be invested in.
When the current leaders are gone the next generation of leaders, workers, and dreamers are called upon. In order for them to be ready to build, and build better for their children, they need to be invested in. I, along with anyone who has time to give, need to invest our time in the hope and innocence of Abaco’s youth. We need to invest our time into the process of becoming a self-sufficient island and reducing the percentage of reliance on the outside. We need to invest in a community, one that relies on each other, so said community can flourish and develop.
We invest our money strategically. We do that so our money develops into wealth. We set goals for our finances, and oftentimes, if done right, those goals are met. It may happen in a few years, or it may take a lifetime, depending on the goal. There is absolutely zero excuse not to invest your time as you do your money. The time of a few hardworking volunteers built an amazing community center. It is a beautiful building, but more importantly, a beautiful symbol of the hope one community in Abaco now has restored.
Places like Abaco, domestic and foreign, need a heavy investment. An investment of your time and your compassion. I challenge myself, along with all who read this piece, to not only do something for these communities but everything you possibly can. The woman who gave her pennies as an offering and was laughed at by the wealthy men who gave thousands. We can do the same with our time.
