Week 2 in Nicaragua has been eventful to say the least. Large spiders, a little girl feeding a squirrel-like animal Oreos during church… chickens laying eggs in our bathroom… scorpions in ditches + a frog coming out of the shower drain when I moved the curtain to get out. The most beautiful sunsets over the lake. Worship. COMMUNITY + vulnerability. Teammates sleeping on the floor of our room (because “community over sleep” as one of my teammates, Miriam, says — we sleep. I promise).
In the midst of the weirdness and the craziness, there has been an abundance of joy. Peace. Love that seems to overflow. As we settle into our home here for the month, and learn more about each other, conversations flow easier and laughter is common.
A piece of my journal entry from a couple days ago :
“Watching the sunset @ the pavilion almost every night is a visual representation of Your beauty + Your faithfulness. You are present here. You have shown up.”
The Lord has been present in every detail. In the conversations we’ve been having. In the stillness + the quiet. In each changing color of the sunset, in the tiny shells I collected on the beach. Even every spot on the frog that was in my shower was intricately placed on him by the Father.
…+ the coolest thing, is that He who created that magnificent view you saw last night, the tiny purple flowers outside your window, the birds you hear chirping in the woods… also created you and me.
Some truth I’ve had on my heart this week:
There is no place where you are vacant. There is no place where You are void.
In the messy + mundane, and also in the beautiful. There is no place that we can escape Him. Sometimes it just takes asking the Lord to open our eyes to see where He was when we felt like He wasn’t there, to discover the ways He held and protected us in the silence.
