Ask and fight. That was the theme of March in Nicaragua.
Sometimes you have to fight for the big things. Like opportunities to do ministry, or relationships on your team. Other times, the fights are for smaller things. Like making a cake.
Making a birthday treat for one of my squadmates was certainly one of the biggest fights we had last month! (And also probably one of the most fun.)
You've got to realize we were sleeping in a church without a kitchen and the closest grocery store was at least 30 minutes away by taxi.
The first step was securing an oven, which we actually never managed to do. We decided to make some other kind of treat instead, but not knowing what, we decided to go to the Internet cafe.
Unfortunately, internet was quite slow that day and we had a challenging time finding a recipie or idea online. We decided to go ahead and leave for the store.
Next we had to find a taxi or a bus to Condega, the town with the grocery. The bus never came, and we walked around for about an hour trying to find a taxi. The few that passed were full. We asked shop owners if they knew the phone numbers of any taxi driver friends. Finally, we found one and were on the way to Condega.
After paying a somewhat expensive fare, we arrived at the grocery. We quickly realized the selection was even more limited than expected. But, we were super excited to find cream cheese there, a rare item. Based on what was available, we decided the only thing we could attempt to make was an Oreo no-bake cheesecake. However, still not all of the ingredients were available. Laughing to ourselves, we decided to substitute vanilla-flavored flan mix for actual vanilla. We were beginning to wonder if this whole thing would turn out for the best…
Waiting in line, we realized there was no way for us to refrigerate the butter and cream cheese we were buying. And we weren't celebrating the birthday for another day. Uh oh. We decided to buy it anyway and see where the wind would take us next…
We took another expensive taxi home, and stopped at a local small tienda (store) along the way. They had a fridge and we asked them if we could rent some of the space to store our perishable items. Fortunately they agreed for no charge because we shopped there often. Refrigeration problem solved!
The next day though, we still didn't have a pan, plate, or way to melt the butter. Although we considered melting the butter in the sun, we ultimately decided we needed to find a kitchen. One of our hosts was out of town, so we only actually knew one other family well enough to use their kitchen. The problem was we had only been to their house once, and didn't remember where it was.
Unannounced, we decided to try to find our friend, Marbelly's, house and hope she would let us use her kitchen. After some long hot wandering, we succeeded! And, because Marbelly is such a wonderful and hospitable woman, she let us in without question!
After some interesting mistakes and being resourceful with utensils, we succeeded with completing the dessert! What a journey to accomplish a simple task! It took the better part of two days.
Despite the hassle, we ended up spending an amazing afternoon making our treat with Marbelly's family. We got to know them even better through this experience and I wouldn't trade that afternoon for the world. Without this fiasco, we would never have formed the wonderful relationships we did with them. We learned a lot about just asking for what we need through this experience, becuase often our requests are met with willing and open arms.
Through this small fight, we were prepped to fight for bigger things last month, such as taking a greater role in church ministry and with the youth in the community. We had to ask and fight for those opportunities last month, and it changed the entire month of ministry for us into one of great success.
So the moral is – ask and fight. Whether that is to make a birthday cake or for something bigger, ask and fight.
