Nicaragua has been a hard month. Hard ministry, hard conversations, and hard realizations. God really has been having me press into pain this month, and to be honest I have not enjoyed it. I expected there to be good and bad in every country however I did not know how it was going to look. This month God has been teaching me a lot about Grace, silence, generosity, and loving others and myself. I wanted to share with you all about something that happened a week or so ago. First let me set the stage.
Nicaragua is all squad month. All 50 of us are staying at a hostel called El Puente which means (The Bridge). We have 3 propane stove top burners and 2 refrigerators in the kitchen and in the bathroom 33 women have to share 2 toilets and 4 showers. The 9 guys have to separately share 2 toilets and 4 showers. At one point this month all 4 toilets were broken from plumping issues. We have roughly 38 bunk bed to sleep and remaining room outside for tents and hammocks. There has been a plot twist this month. While there is typically 4 teams (35 people) at the hostel, the other two teams (13-16 people) are taken out by boat to Zapetera island for manual labor ministry. There are roughly 100 families living on the island currently and we are supplying the locals with a church. Built from the ground up with our bare hands. As you can imagine this is strenuous labor, accompanied by lots of sweat and a very hot Nicaraguan sun. We have been taking turns by rotation. Every 4 days 2 teams leave, and two teams come back. My team and team Women of the Well went last week for the first time with high expectations to have a great 4 days of fun and intentional ministry. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.
We left the hostel sometime Monday morning each person in tow with a small daypack and our 8 5 gallon water containers. 3 Men from the island accompanied us and we loaded the small wooden tugboat and set sail for a 2 hour boat ride to Zapetara. Ministry started fairly quickly upon our arrival shortly after getting settled in. As soon as we arrived people started coming out of the woodwork. Curious to see the new gringos (white people) and what we were up to. Between the 15 of us we were given a small room with a mattress to sleep on and a boxspring on the floor. 4 people on one and 3 on the other. 3 of us were allowed to sleep under the rickity pieced together shelter in our hammocks, and the rest of the group doubled up in tents outside. Chickens and stray dogs roamed the island freely at their leisure. A few women were hired to work in the small kitchen there and they prepared and served us rice and beans EVERYDAY. EVERY meal. This by no means is no complaint because it was delicious. For lunch and dinner the local boys would go catch us fresh fish and the women would fry it up, fish head and all. I was not exactly keene on the sight of the fish so my daily meals consisted of soley rice and beans. One of the days they served us fresh caught armadillo. Which I also did not taste because all I could imagine was seeing the poor armadillo as roadkill in the states. The “facilities” were quite different than I’d seen before. An outhouse moreless with a deep hole and concrete walls around it with a concrete seat. Lets just say I kept my distance for 4 straight days. We were working about 50 yards from where we were sleeping and spent most of our time there. The jobs varied from sifting sand to making and pouring concrete, we also dug dirt and hauled it away. Heavy manual labor at least 8 hours a day with minimal breaks. The hardest of the work was perhaps the third day. We all rode in the boat to another island with shovels and sandbags in hand. We shoveled between 30-40 bags of sand and walked them through the rocks and mudd to the boat and delivered it back to the jobsite. This trip was made 2-3 times. My feet felt as if I had walked across a football field of razor blades. Perhaps the worst part about the whole island experience were the thousand upon thousand swarms of GNATS. Where did they come from and what is their purpose? I have no idea? The gnats were unbearable. They were miserable. In your face, your food, your ears, your bed, in your bag, in your water, stuck to your sweaty body, you name it they were there.
Needless to say, Stephanie had herself a pitty party for four days. I was angry at God I was angry at my team, at the people of the island, and halfway angry at myself for even signing up for the race at this point. If this was some sneak peak at what was to come I didn’t want any part of it. I would of packed my bags and left and if I would of been allowed. Everything triggered my anger. From the complaining to the sleeping arrangements, the showers in the lake, and the Gnats from hell. I was absolutely miserable. I had zero joy, and zero compassion. My Perspective was small and narrow minded and my attitude was in a serious slum. I would start my day out reading my bible and end my day in team time with the group and all I wanted to do was go to sleep so I would be one more day closer to going home.
I Did a lot of self reflecting on the 2 hour boat ride home and in the days following. I was already preparing for our second return and how horrible it was going to be. After some serious self evaluation and heart examination this is what I have come up with. I am ungrateful, selfish, prideful, ignorant, and entitled as an American. My mind frame was Americans are entitled to the best of the best and deserve what they want when they want it. That’s just it. I was in a constant state of WANT, and gave God no room or opportunity for growth because all I could think about was myself. The people on the island are some of the sweeeeeeetest people you would ever meet and would give you the shirt off their backs. They literally gave us the BEST of what they had, and that just was not enough for me. I wanted running water, a suitable bathroom, and a comfy place to sleep, even a place to wash my clothes or myself for that matter. I was so fixated on what I wanted that the people in front of me didn’t even matter. I didn’t have compassion for them, or my team. I forsook precious time investing in my team, the pastor, and the people on the island because of my negative attitude and desire to please myself.
Something that God has really revealed to me is the difference between Simplicity and Abundance. The people on the island probably have never had a steak dinner, a washer or dryer, T.V., or hot running water. They are just grateful for what they do have. As Americans we struggle with abundance. We are always so consumed with what we don’t have and what everyone else has that we forget what have right in front of us. People who love us, breath in our lungs, good education, working vehicles, and a fridge full of food. Yet we claim, we are broke, hungry, and in need of a new phone or car when the older model isn’t good enough anymore.
Paul teaches us in Philippians 4 “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in ANY and EVERY situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
This was certainly not my attitude during the course of the 4 days. Paul asks us to be content in EVERY situation. A few verses before that he tells us to rejoice in the lord ALWAYS. And to not be anxious about anything but in every situations present our requests to God with prayer, petition, and thanksgiving. My prayers were certainly to God. BUT they were selfish prayers geared toward selfish gain. I didn’t pray for our hosts, the church, or the people living there. Sadly I prayed for myself to endure suffering and make it day after day until we left.
I am quite ashamed of the way I acted and the opportunities I forsook because I thought I was entitled to better. I didn’t give the island a fair chance, or the people, especially God. I prayed when we got home after I realized the poor decisions I had made that God would change my attitude and soften my heart the second trip to the island. I wanted to really invest, establish relationships, and make memories. BUT I feared my negative attitude would again consume me.
Last night I received word that we were not in fact going back to the island due to several circumstances, and now an attitude change and a second chance is not even an option. I missed my shot. I missed precious time to listen, learn, and live in the moment. I could of had such a different experience on the island. But instead of choosing joy I chose to play the victim. To me the island was dirty, smelly, and broken. But God showed me there is beauty in the broken. He is in the slums of Nicaragua and the prestige places of America. No one is entitled and no one is better than the other. We’re all broken and we all need Jesus.
I wanted to challenge you to do a serious heart check, really evaluate yourself and your perspective. Do you think you’re entitled? Do you think perhaps you’re better than your coworker, best friend, boss, or the janitor at the office who mops the floor? Perhaps because of what you have? What you wear? Where you went to school? Or where you work? God loves you, me, the people on the island and that guy/girl you don’t like just the same. We are no better because we’re Americans and our circumstances are different. Next time you are consumed by problems, frustrations, or life think about the message you’re conveying…That your circumstances are more important than GODs command to ALWAYS rejoice.
