The first time I met Juana she came over and sat down beside me on a rock. She started talking to me about her son, she told me the first day that I had met and played guitar for him he told her that I “enchanted” him.
I looked down at her hand and saw a very pretty wedding ring and I told her I liked it. She said that she had to clean it, that it had gotten a little dirty between house work and school.
Juana is a beautiful single mother of a 10 year old boy named Josue. This family of two broke my heart every day in Nicaragua.
I can see them now as they would travel down the road on their motorcycle to the school we lived in. Juana would drop Josue off on her way to school and he would bee-line his way to my tent. As he got to me he would look at my guitar and say “puedes tocar la guitarra porfavvvor?”(Can you play the guitar pleeeease). I would get up and we would sing “open the eyes of my heart lord” in Spanish and worship together. Then we would play soccer and he would follow me around the school as I worked.
The day after i met Juana, her and Josue showed up at our house for church at 5pm. Juana sat me down and then took the diamond ring off of her finger. She told me she had cleaned it and I agreed that it looked very clean. Then she handed it to me and said she wanted me to have it to remember her by. I was completely shocked, this was probably the most valuable thing she had ever owned in her life. I told her I could not take the ring and I could tell her felt a little upset and maybe offended that I wouldn’t take it.
Later on that day her and her son returned with fish that they had bought and cooked for me at the market. It was the most delicious fish i had ever tasted in my life.
Every day they would come and visit and wouldn’t want to leave. We spent our off time at the river together, talking, playing soccer and of course playing the guitar.
I fell in love with them, and when it was time to leave, I cried. The day i left her son gave me a letter and told me not to open it until I left. I told them I loved them and would hopefully see them again one day.
As I opened the letter later, there was the wedding ring. She wrote, “please take this ring to remind you of me, i will never forget you and the way God used you as a blessing in my sons life and my own.”
In the 8 countries I’ve been to the people steal a little bit more of my heart and Nicaragua was no different.
God, why does it hurt so much to leave family in each country!?
