As our bus crossed the border into Nicaragua, I thought about how this country is a special place to me. Just over five years ago, it’s where I was truly immersed in another culture for the first time, where I saw that I can actually make a difference, where dreams were born, and where I fell so totally and deeply in love with service. Now I’m back, and I couldn’t be more excited!
This is my team’s Unsung Heroes month, so we don’t have a ministry site. Unsung heroes are people who have dedicated themselves to serving others in need yet rarely receive recognition for this service. Our job is to find them so others might go there in the future. We’re going on a treasure hunt!
For those who haven’t done a treasure hunt before, it goes like this. You’re given an initial clue and must go to the place that clue is leading you. When you get to the right place, there is another clue that will then lead you somewhere else. In the end, if you follow all the clues correctly, you’re lead to the treasure. Ours works the same way, but it’s a treasure hunt designed by God for His glory. In our case, the treasure is these unsung heroes, and the clues could be anything… something we feel God is telling us, our adventurous spirits leading us to the mountains, or someone we meet who knows someone who knows someone else four cities over. Our only guideline is to stay east of Lake Nicaragua. The lake is quite far west, so we have almost the entire country to explore. This is an opportunity to literally expand God’s Kingdom by finding new places to send future Racers, to see more of a country than we’ll see any other month, to not really have a plan and just let it unfold as time goes on (my kind of travel!), and to adventure.
Let me tell you about our first clue. This past Sunday, we went to an international church where most people were missionary families. We sat in front of a couple that works with a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program in the first city we had hoped to travel to. It turns out that he is traveling there today and has extra space in the back of the ambulance he uses to get there. Perfect! So later today, we’ll climb into the back of someone’s ambulance to drive about three hours to a rehab facility… because that’s where our clue led us! Once we’re there, we’ll wait for the next clue.
Sometimes, treasure hunts are less about the actual treasure and more about the adventure of the journey itself or the people you meet, the experiences you have, and the lessons you learn along the way. We have our first clue, we have a map of Nicaragua, and our bags are packed. It’s time to find some treasure!
Here’s a picture of our treasure-hunting team… Team Sista Fierce!
