11/27/10
A couple weeks ago a woman named Barb came here to live. She has been to New Song before, but this time she committed to stay for a year. She has red, curly hair, and an infectious laugh. She is also a nurse. She retired from her job, had a going away party, and set off to Nicaragua. Barb has shown me once again that it’s never too late to do something new. At 60, she has even been seen standing on a bench during church dancing and lifting her hands in the air. About every day since she has arrived, something crazy and new will happen and she says she just can’t believe she is living here now. She felt called to Nicaragua after her couple short term trips here. She previously went to India on a mission trip and wanted to go there. She said when the Lord told her to learn Spanish, she didn’t understand. She thought, “They don’t speak Spanish in India!”
I really admire Barb and have enjoyed spending time with her. It is not easy moving from Florida where she lived five minutes from the beach, to a new country. She had to leave her friends and church behind, had to leave her house, pack her life belongings into four suitcases, and has to learn a new language.
Barb has been a widow for the past six years. She talks about missing her husband and him as being her best friend. She says God really helped her through that. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars; He call them by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite” (Ps. 147:3-5). She knows there is a reason for everything and says what better gift to be given than to be able to live out the rest of your life serving God.
We have really had some fun with Barb. She rode on the cattle truck with us, climbed the volcano, went to the beach, and went around the village. I’ll never forget out youth night when we made music videos. Barb was in our group and just jumped up on stage and started dancing. The youth love her.
I’ve really enjoyed talking about “nurse things” with Barb and going around with Rosa and Barb to check on sick people. One morning Rosa was talking about a little boy with a foot injury. A bike spike had gone through his foot. Barb packed up her backpack with supplies we might need, put on her floppy hat to protect her from the sun, and off we went. We went to a few houses that day. When we got to the little boy, his injury looked pretty good. His foot was healing well. I cleaned the wound and tapped some gauze on, which I’m sure will be off in 10 minutes with him running around. One thing I was worried about here was treating kids without really any pain meds. Barb said they really just watch you and don’t cry like children in the States. They are tougher because they have to be.
