Today we are leaving Asia for Central America. I have been looking forward to these last 3 months ever since applying back in December of 2016. I have fallen in love with the Central American culture and our first stop was Nicaragua, where my heart for ministry began.
It was where when I first experienced poverty first hand and where I first felt called to love the unloved.
We were helping renovate a local church in the area and they told us to not offer water or food to people outside of the church. It was a very unfortunate reality. Even though they wanted to help they could not support anyone with the funds they had. One day when we were working a man was stumbling by on the sidewalk across the street. I asked those in charge if I could give the man some water despite them telling us we shouldn’t. They said yes and I took the man a cup of water. When I gave it to him it was evident there was something wrong with him. Whether he had some sort of mental handicap, he was drunk, or he was on some sort of drugs, it broke my heart. I wanted to help him more but I couldn’t. Sure enough he later came back to the church looking for food or water still mentally out of it. My heart continued to break for him and I couldn’t keep it in and just started bawling. One of my leaders on the trip tried comforting me by telling me a story I will never forget. It’s called “The Starfish Story” and it goes as follows…
“One morning this man was walking on a beach the day after a huge storm. There were hundreds of thousands of starfish washed up on the beach, surely they would die with no way to get back into the water. But then this man comes across a boy. This boy was picking up the star fish one by one and throwing them back into the water. The man asks the boy, “What are you doing? You cannot possibly save all of these starfish, there are simply too many. Why are you even trying?” The boy doesn’t say anything, he just bends down, picks up a starfish and throws it back into the ocean. Then he responds saying “I just made difference in that one’s life, I saved them.” The man then joins the boy saving the starfish one by one, doing what they can to make a difference.”
This story has been one I’ve shared several times throughout the race to this point in my sermons and when I share with people why I signed up for 11 months away from home. I can’t save everyone, just as the boy in the story could not save all the starfish, but what he could do what he could. I am on this trip to be used by God to help save as many people as possible.
I had left Nicaragua the first time with the feeling that it was truly a second home for me and when we left we were saying “hasta la vista” meaning “goodbye” in spanish, but my host Dad corrected us to say “hasta luego” meaning “see you later.” He refused to accept that it was goodbye, that one day we would come back and be reunited.
8 years later I was super excited to be going back to finally fulfill that promise of “see you later.” Then this morning we were informed we will no longer be going to Nicaragua. Due to civil unrest and foreigners joining the protests, Nicaragua revoked our permission to go in their country.
My heart sank.
10 hours later, it’s still hard to put what I’m feeling into words.
What we don’t know:
- Who our hosts will be.
- What ministry will look like
What we do know:
- We will be in Panama now a couple months early
- God is good
I chose this World Race route for the fact that we got to go to Nicaragua, but I chose the World Race because I wanted to spread the love of Christ, serve those who are in need, and love those who are unloved around the world. While I am saddened by the change, I know God has a plan greater than my fleshes desires.
