This month of ministry has been amazing! My team and I have been serving at La Finca Vida Joven, otherwise known as Young Life, here in Nicaragua. It has been hard, laborious work but I have loved each and every moment! It has been filled with two things that remind me of home, coffee and concrete/cement. Living in and around Seattle, coffee is naturally part of you blood. It is part of my blood but so is concrete. My daddy and papa have been in the concrete business since before I was born and it is genetically a part of me.
Our first week at Vida Joven, we played with machetes in the coffee fields (whoever thought it was a good idea to give us all machetes was a genius and maybe slightly crazy), planted new coffee plants, and stomped around in compost feeding the worms. I honestly cannot remember the last time I ‘played’ in the dirt – picking up worms and digging with my bare hands; it was almost liberating, almost as if I were a kid again. It felt so natural; I didn’t care that my hands and clothes were caked with mud or that the compost reeked as I stood in it up my shins (thankful they provided us with amazing rubber boots) shoveling the rotting apples and other decomposing foods into buckets.
Our second week was spent making concrete posts. We spent the days shoveling gravel and sand into wheelbarrows for our hand mixed cement. I have grown up around concrete my entire life and there is nothing more grueling than hand mixing cement with shovels. Our jefe (boss), Walter, always kept our days entertaining with singing songs or attempting to explain how to do what he was asking through a mini game of charades or can you say that more slowly. Thank goodness it didn’t take us long to catch on the construction vocabulary. Along with the mud and dirt, I was able to add oil and cement to my work clothes that had still yet to be washed; after 8 days of work still didn’t care that I put on the same dirty clothes each morning.
This past week, we dug holes – 2 holes… 2 massive holes! I took my first nap on the race this week. It was exhausting. There were times that I didn’t think I could dig any more but thanks to God, I managed to muster up just enough strength to make it through the day. I am so thankful that we only had to spend two days digging dirt and moving massive boulders. Our final day of ministry involved painting which thankfully I was able to add to the collection of colors and things that have been smeared all over my clothing – I now have green on my pants! I will finally be washing my clothes for the first time this month, tomorrow!
I have been involved with Young Life and WyldLife back home and we emphasize that camp is the best week ever; well this month at La Finca Vida Joven, I can say that this has been my best month on the race! I am so excited to see what else God has in store for my teammates and me in the months to come!
Our first week at Vida Joven, we played with machetes in the coffee fields (whoever thought it was a good idea to give us all machetes was a genius and maybe slightly crazy), planted new coffee plants, and stomped around in compost feeding the worms. I honestly cannot remember the last time I ‘played’ in the dirt – picking up worms and digging with my bare hands; it was almost liberating, almost as if I were a kid again. It felt so natural; I didn’t care that my hands and clothes were caked with mud or that the compost reeked as I stood in it up my shins (thankful they provided us with amazing rubber boots) shoveling the rotting apples and other decomposing foods into buckets.
Our second week was spent making concrete posts. We spent the days shoveling gravel and sand into wheelbarrows for our hand mixed cement. I have grown up around concrete my entire life and there is nothing more grueling than hand mixing cement with shovels. Our jefe (boss), Walter, always kept our days entertaining with singing songs or attempting to explain how to do what he was asking through a mini game of charades or can you say that more slowly. Thank goodness it didn’t take us long to catch on the construction vocabulary. Along with the mud and dirt, I was able to add oil and cement to my work clothes that had still yet to be washed; after 8 days of work still didn’t care that I put on the same dirty clothes each morning.
This past week, we dug holes – 2 holes… 2 massive holes! I took my first nap on the race this week. It was exhausting. There were times that I didn’t think I could dig any more but thanks to God, I managed to muster up just enough strength to make it through the day. I am so thankful that we only had to spend two days digging dirt and moving massive boulders. Our final day of ministry involved painting which thankfully I was able to add to the collection of colors and things that have been smeared all over my clothing – I now have green on my pants! I will finally be washing my clothes for the first time this month, tomorrow!
I have been involved with Young Life and WyldLife back home and we emphasize that camp is the best week ever; well this month at La Finca Vida Joven, I can say that this has been my best month on the race! I am so excited to see what else God has in store for my teammates and me in the months to come!
