Dear Nicaragua,
I have missed you so much the past four years. I have missed your beauty. I have missed your people and their joy and kindness. You were my first international mission trip, and because of that you have held a very special place in my heart ever since. Thank you for being my first view of missions and for helping to confirm that passion that God had given me for helping the “least of these.”
Know that I considered coming back several times, but when I applied for the World Race, you were not on my original route…and that was intentional. Not that I don’t love you, but because I had already visited you, I wanted to experience 11 brand-new countries.
Obviously, God had a different thought, because my original route was full, and I had to choose a new route. So, here I am!
I know that God has plans for me and you. I know that I am here for a reason, and I’m excited to see what that reason is. I am in a completely new city, one that is very different than the one I visited so many years ago. Yet, I get reminders often that take me back in time to 2013. The first time I ate gallo pinto (rice and beans), I knew it tasted exactly the same as the first time I had eaten it. Even though it is something I have eaten several times in other countries while on the Race, this was different and special. When I went on a prayer walk in a poorer community in Granada, I was reminded so much of the house I lived in on that first mission trip, and the community that I worked with. When I saw the plantain trees and the pepino plants on the farm here for the first time, I remembered the farm that my first Nicaraguan family owned.
Thank you, Nicaragua, for welcoming me with open arms once again. I am so glad to be back!
Much love,
Chelsea
