Anyone who knows me well knows that I adore living with host families when I travel. The Lord has blessed me with incredible hosts on previous international trips to Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, and South Korea. The beauty in living with these families came in part from sharing memories, laughter, tears, and the little joys of everyday life in wonderful new cultures. But, it also came in the simple truth that as sons and daughters of God we are already united as a family in a deep way. I have learned so much from these precious families and continue to cherish each of them in my heart.
At the end of month #2 on the Race, I prayed for our team to have a host family in Nicaragua. The Lord answered with abundant blessings in the form of the dear pastoral family at our ministry location in La Calera, Nicaragua. I am so delighted to call the Aragón’s my new family and look forward to a long and beautiful friendship and connection with them.
I am no longer in Nicaragua, but my thoughts and prayers often take me back there. I’d like to try and reflect a few of the reasons this family has been such a blessing in this journey of mine:
- church events, youth meetings, and movie night with the community
- learning new words in Spanish and teaching new words in English
- cooking Nicaraguan dishes and learning new recipes
- receiving beautiful hand-made bracelets
- guitar and piano lessons
- playing frisbee & breakdancing after evening church services
- sweet conversations while the group walked to and from Palacaguina
- riding bikes through a thunderstorm at night to get to the doctor
- them giving up time normally spent working in the community to care for my team
- hearing powerful testimonies of perseverance and faithfulness
- yelling at Horto and Chuffy with the accent of a Spanish mom scolding her kids (not to be confused, Horto and Chuffy are dogs:)
- jokes and laughter while digging dirt out of the side of a mountain; wheel-barrel races
- eating such delicious food!
- sharing thank you cake and celebrating our time together with a goodbye party
- making silly videos and laughing over them together
- chats over coffee
- singing worship music in church or around the kitchen table
- praying together
For these memories and so many more I have felt so blessed for our month in Nicaragua. Please continue to lift up the Aragón family in your prayers because they truly run the race with perseverance, as we are told to do in Hebrews 12. My Race has led me to another country for now, but they are still running theirs in Nicaragua with just as much perseverance.
