Nicaragua

My team crossed into Nicaragua after a delayed departure from Honduras, due to vehicle problems once again.  As we approached the border, each vehicle was stopped and the driver in my car, Brent, was asked for his license.  He gave the border “official” a fake copy of his license as instructed by our team leaders.  We had been warned that corrupt government officials often take foreigners’ licenses and refuse to return them.  Sure enough, the official told Brent that he would not return his license unless Brent paid a ticket for failing to wear a seatbelt.  Brent had been wearing a seatbelt our entire drive and refused to fall into the trap.  He denied the false accusation and drove on, leaving the copy of his license behind, thankful for the warning we had received.  We continued on to the Nicaraguan side of the border and got everyone’s documents sorted in just three hours—record time for our team.  Feeling hopeful that the license snafu would be our only setback of the day, we drove on towards Jinotepe, our destination city.

The drive to Jinotepe went surprisingly smoothly for the first several hours.  After so many popped tires, blown transmissions, broken axles, etc., I was shocked at how well we were doing.  Unfortunately, I got excited a little too soon.  When we were about twenty miles from Jinotepe, one of the RVs started smoking and suddenly died.  There was a problem with the transmission, and we were forced to tow the vehicle the rest of the way. Squished into the remaining four vehicles, we carried on and arrived in Jinotepe around six p.m. We were greeted by Glenn and Lynn, a missionary couple who run Mateo 5:16, the ministry we would work with for the next few days.  Glenn explained that since it was already Friday evening, a mechanic would probably not be able to look at the RV until Monday morning.  This would probably push us back a couple days--not an atypical experience for our team.

The next morning, we met with Glenn and Lynn to hear more about Mateo 5:16.  Their main mission base is called Nueva Vida and is comprised of a large kitchen, a small sewing room for the local women, a little church building, and a few large dormitories (where our team stayed).  Glenn and Lynn explained that they also run a hotel in downtown Jinotepe, oversee an orphanage, and partner with several churches.  They invited us to join them at any of the Mateo 5:16 church services and help out at the orphanage during our time in Nicaragua.

I gladly agreed to get involved with the orphanage ministry.  Two new girls had flown into Nicaragua weeks prior to meet up with our team and had been living at the orphanage while they waited for our arrival.  Susy and Rachael had quickly become accustomed to life at the orphanage and volunteered to show us the ropes.  They taught us how to use public transportation to get from the mission base to the orphanage so that we would have the freedom to come and go as we pleased.  During our first visit, we were greeted by several friendly faces, a handful of dogs, and a sheep named Princessa.  I found that only nine children lived within the small orphanage, all taken care of by a single mama named Juanita.  This woman is amazingly gracious, kind, and loves each of the children as her own.  Susy explained that many of the children had been abused by their families, passed around as sexual objects from person to person.  This orphanage had become a safe haven for each of them, and Juanita had become a nurturing mother.  When I interacted with these sweet and gentle children, it was hard to believe everything they’d gone through. 

During our second full day in Jinotepe, my teammate, Melissa, and I ventured to the orphanage on our own and joined up with other team members later.  Walking around Jinotepe to find our bus inspired an unexpected feeling of nostalgia.  The city reminded me a lot of where I used to live in Uganda—streets filled with bustling markets, friendly faces, local shops, and dusty dirt villages outside of the city.  Melissa and I enjoyed the adventure of exploring the city and finding the correct mini-bus downtown, then walking down the dirt road to the orphanage—a muddy mess impassable for vehicles.  Upon our arrival at the orphanage, Susy explained that if volunteers don’t take initiative to organize activities for the children, they often waste many hours sitting around and watching television.  She suggested we create an active game for them with whatever resources we could get our hands on.  We decided to design an obstacle course throughout the compound, creatively using the limited resources we had.  We began the course by instructing the children to run through a dirt path lined with random chickens and roosters.  Next, we had them weave their bodies between the swings on their rickety-old playground.  We then drew a hopscotch course in the dirt that led to the next obstacle.  After the last jump, we placed an old table on the ground and told the children to crawl underneath it.  Next, we fashioned a soccer goal by balancing a large stick on two chairs.  We put a deflated soccer ball a few feet in front of the goal and instructed the children to kick the ball over the stick before advancing to the next part of the course.  Susy gathered some pinecones and found an old bucket that she positioned a few feet in front of a pile of pinecones.  The last challenge was throwing at least one pinecone into the bucket, then running to a specific tree stump and tagging it.  The children eagerly agreed to run the course, and we timed each one.  After they took their turns, they insisted that I try the obstacle course as well.  I did my best, but the little girls completely kicked my butt.  Turns out, tossing a pinecone into a bucket is harder than I thought.

We returned to the orphanage a third day and went into the surrounding villages with some of the older girls from the orphanage.  Three of them led groups of us into the village where we visited peoples’ homes and prayed for them.  I was blown away by the faith and confidence that these young women carried.  We had the opportunity to pray for the sick as well as invite people from the community to one of Mateo 5:16’s churches.  The next day, several people came to the church for the first time.

Meanwhile, back at the mission base, the RV was still not fixed.  As we had suspected, the needed repairs would push us behind schedule by a couple days.  We were already three weeks behind our original itinerary, and I began to wonder if this delayed pace would continue.  Things within our team were changing left and right.  We’d just added six new people to the team and lost six original team members.  Dynamics were changing quickly.  In addition, Glenn and Lynn started putting demands on our team that we couldn’t meet.  I was doing the best I could to serve and didn’t know what else to do.  I started to get overwhelmed by all of this, and questions bombarded my mind: Will this trip take months longer than expected?  How much will I miss while I’m away?  Will people be disappointed in me for missing crucial events in their lives while I am here?  How long will my life simply be a revolving door of people?  Suddenly, I hit the point where I realized that I have ZERO control over what is happening.  I don’t know when I will be in any given country or how long this crazy journey will take.  I don’t know who will end this journey with me.  At this point, I honestly have very little answers for the questions I’ve been asked about the future.  And to be completely honest, it scares me sometimes.

Though I am on this trip to serve and minister to others, I realized that I needed someone to take care of me for a moment.  It is a humbling thing to have to admit that you need help when you are the one who is supposed to be offering it.  To be honest, I hesitated to swallow my pride and even let people read this.  But I value being honest and real more than I value looking like I know what I’m doing; and the truth is that sometimes having no control over what’s happening in my own life scares me.  But what a beautiful thing it is to be around people who love you even in weakness.  And better yet, how beautiful it is to serve a God who uses the weak things of the world to shame the wise. 

Most of my team didn’t know how I was feeling, but God did.  During the night that I was struggling, he brought me to a group of my teammates who were sharing their hearts with one another.   After we talked for quite a while, one of the guys said he felt we should pray together for just a minute.  And as we began to pray, a minute of prayer somehow turned into two and a half hours.  As a group, we cried out to God in pure desperation, losing all track of time.  Without me saying a word about how I was feeling, three people from my team approached me, prayed for me, and declared the truth of God in place of the fears I’d been tackling.  Though I had felt my life was out of my control, I remembered that I was never really the one in control to being with.  My teammates reminded me of this and gave me strength when I lacked it—without judgement, expectation, or hidden agenda.  They simply loved me.  And I felt the heartbeat of the Father in them.  I felt His love. 

I had thought I was in Nicaragua to serve at an orphanage, but instead I was really the one being served.  And I think that’s okay.  God’s word says that all fruit flows from intimacy with the Father, so in order to bear more fruit, I need to be with Him. God used my desperation to bring me right where He wants me—close to His heart.  And honestly, there’s no place I’d rather be.