This month, team Fire Starters and I have been serving as manual laborers at La Finca, the famous campground of Young Life (Vida Joven) in Nicaragua. This is the only camp for Young Life in Nicaragua and often serves as a training center for Central American YL staff. I want to give a shoutout to Jay and Amanda Miranda, friends from my church C3SF and the newest directors of Young Life Mexico. They stayed in La Finca during their last training, and when I got here, their names were mentioned by Ann Sharp, the camp director here in Nicaragua. What a small world of people colliding in my world, serving God wherever they go.
The La Finca campgrounds is gorgeous. Walking around it reminds me of the Shire from The Lord of the Rings, it's ethereal beauty with a hint of mystery. The woodsy feel also reminds me of Anchorage, Alaska, where I grew up. It's nestled in a forest of endless trees, plants and coffee fields, with a lake (I still need to go canoing), camp housing for hundreds of kids, a cafeteria, soccer field and even a Labyrinth (more on it later).
The weather is also a pleasant contrast to last month's extreme humidity, it's been cool around 50 degrees and cold at nights so we often start fires (living up to our name) in our little apartment during team time. Who says we can't be by ourselves while on the race, we are getting our fill of alone time this month. I love my quiet times of lost on the campgrounds and in the forest. "See you guys at dinner teammates, I'm going for a walk in the Labrinth!"
God has been so good to us this month. He's our Jehovah Jireh, we are getting hot showers daily and have all our meals cooked for us by the Young Life campground workers, all within our budget of $5/per person/per day. Our team has gotten close this month as we worked side by side everyday, spending time together as a family from the time we wake to the time we go to bed. God did you exchange the 7 vastly different teammates with weird habits and personalities from the last two months and gave us a brand new team this month? That's how I feel. Of course we still have our issues, but our prayers of team unity and grace have bear some fruit. Everyone is starting to change for the better, is it really happening? Feedback works!
And "how about me you" ask? I've been doing well since I took a break from leading our team. Sarah has stepped up to serve the team as the leader for this season and I've been enjoying the gift of rest and just "being". The first week we got here I had a solo dance party all by myself on the porch steps singing on the top of my lungs and dancing like a crazy person, who cares right?
We love the staff here at Young Life, we got to work along side Danny & Ann Sharp, the camp directors here, as well as a team from the US last week. We got to go to Young Life Club and see high school kids have fun, sing songs, play games, do skits on a weeknight and the infectious energy and free-spiritedness in each kid was unmistakeble. If you are familiar with Young Life, club is just like how they have it in the US and if you aren't familiar with Young Life, then check out nicaragua.younglife.org for their amazing vision of having "Every kid seen and be seen."
Moving on to manual labor, today I just finished digging a big septic hole on the ground with the team for 8 hours straight (my entire body is screaming of soreness), and have so far made bunk beds, cement posts, planted coffee and killed weeds with machetes. As someone that's hardly worked a day of manual labor in my entire life, this has been the hardest I've ever worked physically. Dad, if you are reading, you would be proud of me for working this hard. It's definitely challenging me every moment as everything in me wants to quit but I know that there's a reason I'm doing these very tasks at this very moment. God has ordained my work solely to worship Him and to bring Him glory as well as be a helping hand for many of the projects here with or without muscles. I am learning things like how to use a machete and being humbled everyday when I see how hardworking the workers at camp are.
I also enjoy learning Spanish and laughing at my language mistakes with Mario, the Coffee Manager, William, the field hand, Walter "Churro" the cement and hole digging expert, Mauricio, the guest services manager, and Oscar, the operations guy. They gently joke with us when Jen and I mixes up "You tengo hambre"(I am hungry) with "Yo tengo hombre." (I have a man). It's also been inspiring to hear how each of them came to work at Young Life after a life changing testimony of how Young Life led them to Christ in their younger years.
"It's really not a job for me, it's my life." says Harold, Camp Manager, who leads a daily devotion with the entire camp staff/workers with his hand drum playing. " It's one big family here, we have different biological fathers but one spiritual Father."
Want to try the coffee we planted? You can buy some at www.beyondcoffeebeans.com and read the Young Life La Finca story.
How is coffee related to Young Life? It takes 1 pound of coffee from 1 coffee plant to pay for 1 Young Life kid to go to camp for 1 day.
Did I also mention the coffee tastes pretty darn good? We get to drink it for breakfast and dinner everyday.
*Please pray for our team as we continue to unite as a family and learn to extend grace to each other. Please also pray for my teammate Jen's knee and my healing ankle as we continue the hard manual labor this month.
