I never truly grasp the concept of “benignancy” until I met my host family on the edge of Sioux Falls, a place where I would call “home” since then. From them I have learned that benignancy is the high erect of humanity; it is compassion, selflessness, and hope.

My host parents, Peter and Susan, are both pure and pious Catholics. Together with their three sons, three international boarding students including me made up this family of benignancy. From them, I learned the highest level of benignancy is compassion. One of my daily routine is to embrace the vivacious welcome from some of the thirty plus homeless dogs that Susan took under her wings. Susan demonstrated for me that benignancy is unconditional, regardless how dirty looking, disabled, or sick the homeless dogs are, and Susan displayed the same level of affection. Whenever any of them get sick or injured, Susan takes them to the veterinary immediately no matter how late it is. When I first arrived, I asked Susan to why not let the community to take in some of the stray dogs. She refused and claimed “They need family”. It is true, we all need family. Now as I cleaned the yard and washed the dogs habitually with my host brothers and roommates, I find joy in offering my helping hands to this compassionate lady.

Benignancy is about selflessly helping others without asking for any payback. I’m a lucky recipient of this lesson through volunteering work. I had been a volunteer in my community center in China before I went to the U.S.A. Every Sunday morning we knocked the doors of the elderly in the community to hand them free bread and offered to help them in house works, we were always met with wrinkled faces enveloping tremendous smile. It is then I learned the lesson; giving is receiving. In Sioux Falls, I attended the “Community Furniture Mission”, a volunteer service that picks up furniture from the donators and dropping them off at the center. This is my continuation of my quest to understand benignancy, my labor to trade smiles.

Through the furniture mission, I also have met all kinds of people in the American society that are struggling to survive. As I move furniture to those in needs; I would see the alcoholics, the drug addict, the unemployed, the bankrupted, and immigrants that knew no English trying to survive together. When they received the donor’s furniture, they received hope. The unemployed Jason received a desk, from which he will draw his new plan start a new life and Vietnamese Pham received a mattress, welcoming her and encouraging her to survive in this new surroundings. When the donors decides toward charity, it is begetting hope, to show the respect toward humanity, which also may have been their maxim for life.
Sioux Falls has changed my perspective of the meaning of benignancy. In this place I learned to live with compassion, to offer selflessly, and to begot hope to those in needs.