I can see the sun rising through the chicken coop wire that surrounds my window. The one room cemented house is dark and I can hear the rough wind against our tin roof.
It happened. It happened before I even realized what it was.
I found a home in the country of Nicaragua.
If it were up to me, I’d end it all right here. I’d stand my ground and never leave the place that I’ve called home for three weeks. Rather than eleven countries in eleven months, it would be seven counties in eleven months.
It was more. It was more than arriving in a country and staying for a month.
It’s more than a ministry, it’s a family.
It’s carrying a sleeping toddler in your arms for an hour so she doesn’t have to walk.
It’s being invited to a sleepover in a mud house with dirt floors and being fed like queens and loved like children.
It’s riding in the back of a truck in freezing rain but singing to the top of your lungs with joy.
It’s finding a grandmother who embraces you every morning and lets you sneak the extra chalupa.
It’s a room full of screaming girls trying to kill a scorpion before bed.
It’s a pastor who gives you six baby chicks because you fell in love with one.
It’s your Nicaraguan Uncle helping you dig a grave for your chick and not judging when you cried.
It’s beings handed the tambourine and starting a conga line in the middle of church.
It’s seeing God’s glory in the middle of a trash dump.
It’s discovering that love truly knows no language barrier.
The hurt of loving and leaving is hard. But the thought of not loving and leaving is even harder to imagine.
I left Nicaragua but Nicaragua will never leave my heart.
