‘We meet no ordinary people in our lives’ – C.S. Lewis
Few travelers know Nicaragua is a beautiful place to travel to. To marvel at the country’s volcanic cones is a testament of the immense power of our Earth’s living, breathing interior. To drive across the country means witnessing a landscape of tropical forests embedded with howler monkeys, bats, lizards, parrots, mosquitos, tarantulas, and other creatures. And the undeveloped pacific coastline remains a jewel in the eyes of international surfers and locals. Its amazing to feel the breeze of the Pacific at the beaches and then be able to walk 10 minutes away from the shoreline to find yourself hidden in a jungle. Hikers, climbers, surfers, and travelers will lose their breath here.
Such immense beauty impressed on this coastal land that rises just above sea level will not exhaust the adventurer with a ceaseless, restless spirit for more. This seeming place reminds me of the front covers of National Geographic magazines. If nature is not your cup of joe, Nicaragua roasts some of the best coffee beans in the world. I must say so myself when I finished my 3rd cup at 9am on a Saturday morning. So folks, there is much more to mention about Nicaragua’s natural reserves and coffee beans, but I must draw the attention to the people who make Nicaragua the memorable place it is to me.
The ministry I am partnered with this month invited my team and I to work at a preschool in Diriamba, Nicaragua. Little did I know that the very children who are my students are from the Barrios. The Barrios are the trash-filled dumps their families live, breathe, and sleep in. While it sounds awful, the families do their best despite their circumstances. The effect of knowing where they’re from is another thing to talk about. It causes me to consider that it means a lot to me and to the children to be their teacher. As a believer of the Christian faith, it bears on me to see them the way God sees them, individuals with infinite worth, dignity, and value. Seeing their faces and smiles every morning lights me up. For what it’s worth, the mornings spent with them patiently educating them, and having fun with them of course, has left an unerasable mark on my time here. (I forget that at their age, they have a short attention span but a long, enduring amount of energy)
Going into the Barrios is also on my team’s agenda. We have prayed for some people who are going through a tough time, whether its a medical concern or lost of a loved one. In the end of it all, it’s hard to not feel the pain they’re going through. For example, this past week my team met a man who lives in the Barrios and was tearing up after we conversed with him. He had some kind of medical issue and went into detail of his grief about a family member. We asked if we could pray for him and he gestured us to do so. While we were praying, he was still crying, though differently, as if the crying he was relieving the pain he carried away from him. My team mate, Grace, closed with the final words and as soon as we looked up at the man, he was breaking a smile and was crying no more. We hoped that our prayers and our presence reminded him that he was loved and cared for. It’s sometimes hard to walk away from some of these conversations and know it’s not in my power that anything can be changed, but I can take hope and comfort that it’s God who can bring change into their lives.
One of the guards that’s outside my living quarters lost his baby in a miscarriage. At the moment he told us that, my heart just sank. What am I supposed to do? The unnerving question stirred within my soul to do something. There was little I could do. My response was to listen to his anguish and let him speak what he was going through. My team and I invited him into our home and made him food while we sat around and listened to him. In essence, this was us living out what it meant to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It is not for our benefit or recognition do we do this, but because we want to point others to God who can bring the comfort they need.
In closing, experiences like these cause me to think about what the Christian life looks like. It’s not about following a bunch of rules or laws but living in the life God intended for us to live. It may help to answer the following: When the teachings of Jesus intersect with the practice of one’s lifestyle, do our actions reflect what is Scripture saying? Do we seek to act in accordance to what God is asking of us in the moments he calls us to?
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I am still in need of financial support/partners for fully funding this trip! I am currently at the 55% mark and am $7,000 away from being fully supported by December! If you would like to support me, there is a link on my site to the support me page! But I’d like for you to send me an email, and I would love to connect with you! ~ Matt 6:33
