My favorite Sunday

Of all the days in my life thus far, March 4 may have been the best one yet.  Definitely a top five.  I woke up that morning and headed out with my buddy David in search of a Coke Light.  We went to the store across the street, but it wasn't opened yet, so we meandered through the streets and the market until we found a Nica version of Wal-Mart.  One Coke Light coming up; koozie brought from home.  Along our path, we met Ramon.  He was kind and gentle, an older man selling something on the street, and he was missing an arm from the elbow down.  We prayed for him and bid him our goodbyes.

Our team split up into two and went to two different churches.  The small church we went to treated us well -- we were ushered up front and handed bottles of water.  After the praise and worship, two of our group members shared their testimonies.  During that time, I prayed that the Lord would use Drew and Heidi to affect at least one person in the church on a very personal level.  Throughout the church service and later in the day, I found out they had.  So sweet.

I preached the sermon in the church...I don't say this to boast in myself, because I know it was the Lord in me and not me at all, but it was one of those moments in life where everything was right.  The Lord prepared me for that moment and standing up in a church sharing personal accounts, along with scripture, seemed like the most normal and right thing for me to be doing in all of the world.  It was crazy.  Afterwards, the pastor's wife shared with me, and then in front of the congregation, that she'd been wanting to preach on the Holy Spirit, but hadn't had a chance.  And it was unlikely that she would.  And that's what I preached on -- it encouraged her, as well as me!

Reflecting on our time at church: it was the best church service I'd attended, and it had nothing to do with us.  I loved that they welcomed us, people shared what God was doing in front of everyone, we spent time praying for people.  Someone came to know Jesus.  A man, Carlos, received a personal word from God that he'd been longing for.  It was worshipful and personal and all in all filled with the Spirit of God.

After church, we headed to Rossy and Osvaldo's for lunch.  Once again, a superb meal.  At some point, we had plantain empanadas with black beans on the inside.  My word!  Once we stuffed ourselves, we changed for beach and then took the one hour drive to the beach.  It was my first time in the Pacific Ocean and it was amazing.  This beach girl was so thrilled to be in the sun and sand for the first time this year.

We laughed and played on the beach.  Rode some waves.  Some of us, not me, played volleyball against our Nica friends and got creamed.  I was privileged to hear my friend Anelma's story.  A story of being heartbroken and disappointed when she was nineteen and pregnant -- the "perfect church girl" no longer seen as such.  She was abandoned by her church and members wouldn't speak to her when they passed her on the street.  Then her family met Osvaldo and Rossy and they were kind and full of love.  A story of redemption as she has a beautiful eight month old baby girl, a family that loves and supports her, brothers that act as fathers, a job, a church and mentors, and a strengthened relationship in the Lord Jesus Christ.  She taught herself English from TV and music.  She encouraged me time and time again on our trip.  I watched her share her story many times with others throughout the week and saw small glimpses of the Lord using her over and over again for His glory.

Driving back to Osvaldo's for dinner, I reflected on my favorite Sunday: a great day filled with worship, rest, friends, learning more about the Lord, and good food.

While I didn't take any pics in Nica, my friend Drew Miller took many.  Here are some of my favorites from the beach that day:

Understanding in Everything

In my daily reading, I just read 2 Timothy 2:7, "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything."   Being quite busy since I got back from Nicaragua, I haven't had much time to process and this verse hit me like a ton of bricks.  My brain doesn't have much capacity to dive into it right now...but here's what I can conjure up...

Today has been hard.  Hard to wrestle things like throwing a baby shower for friends that are rich according to the world's standard, knowing that a week ago, I held babies with nothing.  Hard to admit that I'm so selfish here (and everywhere), but I don't want to be.  Hard to function when everything seems backwards and/or upside down.  Hard to accept the shallow lives we accept, rather than fight for depth, even when it is hard.  I want the things that I have seen to change me.  I love Brooke Frasier's song, Albertine that says, "now that I have seen, I am responsible."  I want processed words to yield actions.

Paul tells his beloved Timothy to be strengthened through the grace of Jesus Christ (v1) and to share in the sufferings of Jesus as a good soldier (v3), and then he says that the Lord will give him understanding in everything.  Paul exhorts Timothy to fight and be strong...and then the Lord will give Him insight.  Sometimes we just have to keep fighting when the battle doesn't make sense.

There's just so much I don't understand.  And, yet I know the Lord will give me understanding -- not necessarily answers, but understanding.  He will settle my heart because it belongs to Him.  I think understanding goes back to the Lord: knowing Him means knowing His character and trusting Him.  And He is worthy of our trust, worthy of our worship.  Regardless.  So, when the Lord draws our hearts back to Himself and when He reminds us who He is and who we are in Him, we do gain understanding...in everything.

You make beautiful things

This was our worship theme song.  I learned most of the chorus in Spanish which was fun to sing.  The fact that the neighborhoods were so dusty (I mean dusty!) made the words come alive all the more.  It really is a beautiful reminder that the Lord is constantly working.  He sees beauty in what may be otherwise discarded.

Crash course in Nicaragua life

It was one of those trips where everything seemed to go wrong, yet it was so right.  We landed in Managua (the capital) and Pastor Osvaldo & company were supposed to be waiting on us.  That wasn't the case.  Fifteen of us gringos stood around wondering what to do.  One of us put his free time to good use and stopped off at the pharmacy in the airport - turns out the going rate for antidepressants there was $20.  Same brand and dosage as his prescription in the US, only  no prescription needed and clearly no FDA regulations or red tape.

Pastor Osvaldo arrived and I was immediately drawn to his wife, Rossy (pronounced Rosie).  She grabbed me and told me to get in the car with car.  My A-type feared getting in trouble for leaving the team, but I was in Nicaragua where it is best to be as laid back as possible.  She shared photos of her children and told me some recent hardship in their family.  It felt comfortable from the minute we met.

We met back up with the group and headed to Tip Top for lunch.  They serve a lot of American style chicken products, but I opted for the most authentic I could find and it was yummy.  It's really the only American style fast food  restaurant we saw in the country (other than some actual American restaurants in Managua) and it began my love of Coke Light for the week.  When we left lunch, we headed to Chinandega in three cars: a van, a Jeep, a truck, and Rossy's tiny Toyota.  I was with her, two teammates, and Melvin, our fearless translator for the week.

I'll just go ahead and say this: a drive from Managua to Chinandega should take two hours.  It took us EIGHT. And, then I'll go ahead and say that all eight hours were fun and awesome.  Here are some things that happened along the way:

• The radiator in the Jeep started actin' a fool.  This meant we pulled over every 10-15 minutes to fill it up with water from our Nalgenes.  
• We saw the beautiful Lake Nicaragua.
• We pulled over more times for the radiator.
• Eventually we pulled into a cantina where Osvaldo talked to a friend and traded the Jeep out for another car.  We had a nice respite in the catina, filled with some dancing, enjoying a Tona, and some new found friends let me try their chocolate/maize smoothie type beverage.  
• Eventually we were back on the road...until a tire blew out.  I'm not even sure which car lost the tire.  
• Heidi, the two Drew's, and I were in the van laughing and talking when all of a sudden two men (on our team) hopped in the van and took off going about 100 kph (fast).  At first, we weren't sure why, but realized we were the tire search party.  The four of us had a blast in the van -- laughing a lot and maybe a few tears.  We got to swing through a supermarket to use their bathrooms.  
• Looking for a tire on the streets of Nicaragua looked like pulling up to a sweet grass basket stand on the side of highway 17 and asking for a tire.  We finally found on the 4th try and cruised back to our team.
• We found the team praising and worshipping the Lord on the side of the road -- such a sweet picture and experience.
• We loaded back up and eventually made it to Chinandega.  There, we went to Osvaldo and Rossy's for supper.  Y'all, the food was SO good.  Every meal we ate with them was incredibly delicious.  
• We left their home and headed for the hotel around 11:00 pm, only to be told there was no room at the inn.  Though we'd made reservations and checked the week before, they didn't have us on the books.  I just started laughing -- of course!  They had a group coming in a few days, but we could stay there for two nights.  The Lord is good.
• The rooms were nice, and the breakfast was tasty the next morning.  

I guess you could say our first day in Nicaragua was adventurous.  It was a great glimpse of our week to come: nothing goes as planned, our team had a great time together, and the realization that trusting in the Lord for what He has in store is the best thing to do.

KONY

Just watched this. It went viral when I was out of the country. Wow.  Totally worth 30 minutes.
 
KONY 2012 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Traveling south of the border

Second to arrive at the Charleston airport, I was bouncing with excitement.  Once airborne, I quickly realized who my partners in crime would be for the week.  Heidi, Drew, and I seemed to have to most random conversations and came up with several book titles.  Mine is going to be Everybody's Neurotic -- a funny, yet educational book on the quirks that make us who we are.  I'll keep you posted on publishing dates.  Haha.  From then on out the flights were filled with stimulating conversations and much laughter.

As soon as we'd ascended into the clouds this took place:

Drew: you know what's sad?  When I was little and my family would fly down to Disney World, I'd look at the clouds and try to see if people were in there/on them...
Me: well, what is worse is that I just wondered if I could sit on a cloud.
Busts out laughing.
Me: well, a cloud could hold something.  Something like a feather or a dollar bill or anything with mass, but very little of it.
Drew: no, it couldn't.
We asked Meredith, a science teacher, who agreed with me.
Drew dared me to ask the flight attendant; obviously, I did.  She agreed with Drew, but told me to ask the captain.

A good 30 or so minutes go by and everyone's seated, buckled in, and quiet as we're about to land.  The flight attendent comes back and quite loudly says, "about your question.  I asked the captain, and NO!"

Hahahahahaha.  I still don't buy that.

Dolla, dolla bill, yo!


Oh, and don't worry.  I emailed the US Geological Survey this morning; hopefully, I'll have a response within two business days.

Anteojos

Handing out reading glasses, or “anteojos” to those in need seemed simple enough.  The task was simple, yet the memories of it are far greater.  A few hundred reading glasses were graciously donated to us and piled into a big suitcase.  Monday morning, Drew and I set off with a suitcase full of glasses and Hazel, our translator and soon-to-be-friend.  We set up a table in someone’s home front and got to organizing.  That in of itself was simple -- set up a makeshift eye glass stand in someone else’s home.  I don’t know about you, but that hasn’t happened on my front porch yet.  Those first few minutes I was reminded how gracious the neighbors were to one another.

Hazel taught Drew and I a few key words in eyeglass distribution.  We’d pick out a pair of glasses and ask them to try them out, or “pueba  lo.”  Then we’d determine if they needed higher or lower strength, “mas or menos fuerte.”  It was fun to watch person after person come and receive sight that they didn’t have before.  I was amazed at how quickly the word got out about the glasses and how quickly they seemed to go.  The days Hazel didn’t guide us, my buddy Carlos helped me by finding a home to use and making sure I at least half way knew what I was doing.

It was fun to give others the gift of reading glasses.  But I received far more gifts than I helped distribute.  Gift of prayer: I loved standing in lines guiding people, yet also letting the Lord guide me in prayer.  Lifting up a lady missing a leg, a man missing an arm, asking the Lord to raise up children as lights in a dark world.  Through the laying on of hands with their attention or from afar, it was a time of seeking the Lord to be in our midst.  

Gifts of friendship: I learned more about Drew and we got to be silly and serious; it was fun to see him want to learn the language and be able to communicate as best as he could.  I also got to know Hazel and Carlos on a much deeper level.  Hazel shared some things going on in her life which eventually led to a sweet time of prayer with some other girls.  It was also a pleasure to see kids in the neighborhoods that she’d discipled and had relationships with.  Carlos shared his testimony with me one afternoon and it is one I hope never to forget.  In a nutshell: he was fed, met his future wife, and came to know Jesus through a feeding program -- a program just like where we were handing out glasses.  It gave me such hope for the people we met and excited to see what God will do in their lives.

Gifts of faith and hope: Hebrews 11:1 says, “now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  It may sound ironic that as we helped people see better the Lord taught me about up the things I cannot see.  I was blessed to glimpse and partake a glimpse into the lives of those living in the neighborhoods we served.  However, I may not ever know what happens to the lady without a leg or the boy that walked around praying with me.  And, so, as I reflect on my time with the glasses, I must also remember that the Lord works in mysterious ways and must have hope that receiving a pair of glasses was just the beginning.  The Lord increased my hope for the people there and increased my faith to believe that He will work in big ways -- whether I witness it or not.