After sleeping in a bug net for a month and fishing rainwater out of a barrel daily I learned a few things about life and some valuable skills for the race.
- Always zip your bags closed to prevent unwanted critters (like tarantulas) from entering your bags. This was shared with us our first day there and stuck. It’s also been a valuable lesson to remember here in Nicaragua.
- Bucket showers never really get easier, but I’m grateful for them nevertheless.
- When retrieving water from a rain barrel always pull first from the barrel under the rain gutter to prevent frantic night time transferring during downpours, these usually result in you or a teammate very wet-thanks Caleb!
- A scheduled bedtime is not just for children and was quite nice. It will likely continue throughout the race when I can.
- I enjoy cooking and cleaning when it is part of serving others, when it’s just me I struggle.
- The World Race is hard, but most good things in life are.
- I don’t like admitting weakness and asking for help (I actually already knew this but God is teaching me through this area right now.)
- Little children just want to be loved and to have some of your attention. Give it freely when asked, they won’t be children very long.
Some final thoughts on my time in Honduras:
Those little ones stole my heart
It’s an interesting line of thinking: “How do you love and serve those who shouldn’t be there?” Meaning, if all was right with the world, if these women and children were treated with kindness and love and care. If sin didn’t exist in the world as God originally designed it, these children we lived with and loved for a month, the products of rape and mistreatment, would not exist.
They stole my heart unconditionally over and over again. I spent my month teaching them, loving them, cuddling them, feeding them, putting them down for naps, cleaning poop and pee more times than I care to admit and even putting them in time-out. They sat in my lap and created in my journal and they made silly faces at me when they didn’t understand my Spanish. I don’t know that I’ll ever forget the way their tiny hands fit into mine.
Last month was beautiful and heartbreaking. On our last day God gave me the gift of knowing that in some small, childlike way that they appreciated me being there. As our time came to a close there I was reminded of a desire of mine from the beginning of the month to leave with these children knowing how special they are and how loved they are and how each of them is uniquely created by the God of the universe to do good things. I don’t know if we succeeded, but I pray that we did just that.
What I learned
This my friends was a hard month, the truth of life on the Race has sunk in. I got sick, I longed for my bed, my dog, and time alone where I could just turn on life’s cruise control. But here I live in a close community of believers who hold me accountable to not do that very thing. I had to learn to keep pushing even when it’s hard. So I did, I kept pushing into the hard places and truths of living with community.
I had to learn to push into God when I just wanted him to stop teaching me. I had to keep pushing into myself in those hard areas that I often want to pretend don’t exist. I’d like to say that all of this produced great fruit, that the profound spiritual lessons I learned are just bursting inside waiting to be shared, but they’re not. Maybe in the months to come I’ll be able to look back and put my finger on what they were.
While I find it hard to say what exactly I learned I did draw closer to God. I realized how important it is for me to be still in His presence. To open up in vulnerability to the people who will keep me rooted in the truth of where I am. And I was reminded of a calling that God gave me years before. It was a hard month, but it God was good in it. There will continue to be hard days, weeks and months here on the Race and even after, but in those times I’ll look back and remember this month. To call up a friend who will keep me grounded, to stop and be still, to not hit cruise control and check out.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
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Many thanks and blessings!
Sara
