Nicaragua!

Hola everyone, 

After 12 hours of traveling yesterday, I am back at my house in San Jose, Costa Rica. I’m pretty exhausted: mentally, physically, and emotionally. I do not even know what to say about Nicaragua. I have no idea how to describe the whole experience, and I’m honestly not sure I even want to do that over a blog. Nothing I say on a blog would be able to do justice to Nicaragua and the things I experienced. Even so, I know that many of you really want to know what the trip was like. So I’m going to give a few sentences, but realize that I will only be able to scratch the surface of what it was like in Nicaragua. 

Before I say top much, let me preface this by saying that my trip to Nicaragua was amazing. It was incredible, and by far my favorite part of the semester. I am truly in love with Nicaragua, and I would go back in a heartbeat.

The first day we spent most of the day traveling to Nicaragua, and the first few days we had various speakers and small field trips. We had lectures from various people in Nicaragua, such as the right-hand man to a former President. These first 2 ½ days were really mentally exhausting. We were totally bombarded with different harsh realities about Nicaraugan politics, US involvement in Nicaragua, and various religious topics too. This was just so much to digest, and I did not come close to figuring things out. All day everyday (for 2 ½ straight days) were filled with deep discussions and hard conversations. Even during meals and bus rides the conversations continued, meaning there was very little time for personal rest. It was intense.

On the day that we were getting ready to leave for our rural communities, we heard some really difficult news. One of the students in the program had been dating her boyfriend for 3 years. He was going to school in the United States and was killed in a motorcycle accident. This was just shocking news, and really shook a lot of us up. We realized that we have no guarantee that life is going to continue on the way we think it will. Life is very fragile. Please pray for this student as we flew back to be with her family and friends right now. She is tentatively planning on coming back to finish the semester in a week. Please pray that she just is able to feel God’s presence and wisdom during this time.

The day we left for our rural communities was another full day of traveling. We got up at 2:30am to travel. Again, it was over 12 hours of traveling. Several of those travel hours were in the back of a pickup with 8 other students and all our bags. The idea of travel regulations and seatbelts isn’t a huge issue! It was actually a really fun ride as we enjoyed the sun and the awesome Central American weather.

The town I stayed in was called Chinamos. There were about 750 people in this town, and it was definitely living in poverty. This is part of the trip was by far the most meaningful, and I cannot even begin to describe this experience. I had a really wonderful family, and I definitely made unforgettable memories. Throughout the week, I milked a cow, took a shower with a spiket of water and a bucket, survived without electricity or refrigeration, drank milk straight from the cow, and played a lot of baseball, volleyball, and soccer. I met amazing people, and I fell in love with Nicaragua.

Just for a fun story: the animals are free to roam in the house, which means there are chickens all over the house. The floors are dirt, so it does not really make it dirty. For some reason, the chickens liked my bed (many other people in my family slept in hammocks). Anyway, I would always find chickens in my bed throughout the day. Keep in mind that it is very hot in Nicaragua, which means that all you have is one sheet on the bed. Therefore, the chickens were right where my head would be that night. Throughout the week, the chickens graciously gave me 3 gifts: three fresh eggs laid on my bed. At night, I could also hear the mice running around on the roof and in on walls. When I woke up in the mornings, my bed was full of dirt and caca (poop). It was neatly around my pillow and around my feet. Needless to say, my bed was not just for me.

Despite some of the less than desireable living conditions, it was totally worth it. I would do it again tomorrow if I could. In fact, I did not want to leave at all. I am not much of a crying person. I have only cried 1x since being here in Costa Rica, which is quite a stressful and challenging experience. Nonetheless, I cried like a baby on the bus as I left my community of Chinamos. I truly fell in love with this community, and I would have preferred to spend the rest of my semester in this community.

After our community stays, we spent 2 days in Grenada. This is a tourist city, and this adjustment was difficult. We go from living in poverty to living in a hotel. And now being back in Costa Rica, it is hard to know how to think about the luxuries I have here. There is still a lot on my mind, and I have a lot on my heart right now. Please pray that God will continue to be faithful to me, as he was truly being gracious to me throughout these past 10 days. Please pray that God will fill me with his peace and continue to guide me into his truth as I process what has happened lately. Please pray that I would know how to handle uncertainty and unending questions with an active contentment, a contentment that still seeks growth and change. Please pray that God would allow me to feel his presence and see his work in my life. I have clearly seen God’s hand in the past 10 days, and I am so thankful for that. Please also pray that God would grant me health and healing as I have been having some health issues, especially in the last 2 days.

Also, I want to encourage you each to take some time to praise God today…simply because he is God. Today God really spoke to me through a sermon that seemed to be ironically designed just for me. Through this sermon, God reminded me of some really important things to remember during this time of intense challenging. I do not understand his ways, but I understand that he is God. Therefore, I will praise him even when I am overwhelmed with questions. I do not know everything, but I can continually praise God for the things I do know. Right now, I know that God is great and mysterious. I know that he is unfathomable, and I will never understand him fully. This is not something that I should be frustrated about, but I should rejoice knowing that I will never fully understand God. After all, if my brain could fully understand God, he would not really be that great. He would be small and finite. But thankfully, that is not who my God is. He is faithful, even when I am faithless. He is present, even when I am distant. He is loving, even when I am heartless. He is gracious, even when I am undeserving. This is the God I am coming to know.

Today I have the day off to catch up on homework (we have to write journal entries and a paper abo Nicaragua). Tomorrow I am leaving in the morning for Spring Break Trip. I am going with 4 other girls from the program. We are not sure what we are going to be doing for sure—we just know that we have a destination. All the details are completely up in the air. We are going to Volcan Arenal which is about 4 hours away. We will be there until Monday night. Tuesday morning we start classes again.