Place of Pain

“After great pain, 

a formal feeling 

comes.”

 -Emily Dickinson

At Casita Memorial Park, north of Leon, Ebelina tells her story.

In 1998 she lived in El Porvenir, a village on the side of this volcanic mountain.

Several days of torrential rains had followed Hurricane Mitch. Then on October 30, she heard a loud rumble and ran outside to look for the helicopter.

Instead she saw a roaring wall of mud.

It surged through El Porvenir, burying her waist-deep, crushing three ribs, and breaking her cheekbones.

“That was a hard day,” she says quietly, then chokes up and pauses.

When she speaks again, her eyes are wet. “All around me I heard people crying out.”

For two days she heard adults and infants scream and moan and die. Over and over she calmed a child trapped near her, trying to help conserve his energy and prevent deyhdration.

Rescued by helicopter, Ebelina, a daughter, and a son survived. Her husband, a married son, his wife, and three children did not.

Three surgeries, a month of hospitalization, and relocation to Santa Maria followed.

Ebelina narrates with the impassive dignity of a woman who has weathered great pain.

After her story, we quietly walk the grounds. Beneath us, we learn, are the unrecovered dead.  Each tree we see commemorates a family that is no more.

Coming down the mountain, we ask about her current life in Santa Maria. “I have a garden. I grow vegetables.” she says.

“What vegetables?” we ask.

“Maize  (corn) and papayas.” Yes, in the dry season, she needs to water them. There is a well. Her son and daughter live with her.

As she talks, she smiles. In fact, she glows.

After great pain 

has also flowed 

grace.

-Written Thursday, January 28, while traveling with a team from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. 

-Posted Sunday, January 31, upon return to email access.

One Tiny Fraction

“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete which is another way of saying that the kingdom of God always lies beyond us.  –Oscar Romero, Assassinated El Salvador Bishop

Mike and Maria Saeli, who in their fifties left their New York farm for Latin America, talk about their vision for Nicaragua in their tiny Leon apartment.

“What gave me so much hope was the arts event,” he says. “Kids blossomed in those for days, learning to sing or dance or produce something beautiful.”

I’m suddenly aware he is describing an event funded by a Pella Benefit Garden Tour last spring.

Oblivious, Mike continues, “Each of those 50 children finished that camp thinking, ‘I have talents and gifts. God thinks I am special.’ I believe some of them will become movers and shakers because someone helped them see they are made in the image of God and have something to offer.”

I remember collaborating with Stuarts and Geetings for that tour, the plants from by De Jong Greenhouse, the guided tours by Dan Van Weelden, the generous donations of the tour guests.

Joel Huyser has told me those funds were crucial to funding the art camp.

Now Mike’s vision of its impact opens my eyes, too.

This spring, working on a book about Nicaragua’s Nehemiah Center, I’ll not have time or energy to for second  garden tour.

But last week, Marlo suggested we organize a Pella Benefit Concert instead.

Having heard Mike Saeli, how can we do any less?

Medical Update

John spent the night in the hospital. Nathaniel Hernandez did, too. He slept on a cot, kept John company, and provided translation as needed.

This morning John had stabilized.

The doctors wrote a medical authorization to change move his return flight up a week, and he has flown home.

The Hernandez family has reported these updates to us. We have not seen him since last night’s emergency.

We assume he is safely back in East Baltimore.

Medical Moment

I’m reading a devotional book on the front porch when fellow North American John sags into an adjacent chair.

He’s just back from an overnight adventure, sleeping on a hammock in the campo  (country).

He leans his head back, “I don’t feel well.  Not well at all. . .Ohh. . .I may need you to get my syringe. I have this thing called Addison’s disease. . . I need the bathroom.”

He rests on the bottom step with leg cramps, makes it to the second floor bathroom, and I hear a crash behind its door.

I call my husband. When Marlo opens the bathroom door, John has regained consciousness. We find his syringe. While Marlo helps John, I Google Addison’s disease.

An adrenaline insufficiency, I learn.

And he’s definitely in Addison’s crisis: vomiting, diarrhea, fever, leg pain, slurred speech, fever.

Wikipedia says “dangerous” and “requires hospitalization.”

I show the list to Nathaniel, the only Hernandez at home.

Shall we call 911?

It would be quicker to take him ourselves, Nathaniel says.

He calls his mother. She arrives, along with two women from Forward Edge ministries. Two North American doctors from a nearby medical team soon show up,

They call John’s endocrinologist in East Baltimore.  Yes, the hospital,  he says. Blood work. Rehydration. . .

That was two hours ago.

After a later-than-usual supper, I have tried to return to my devotional reading, but my adrenaline is more than sufficient.

Overflowing, in fact.

And now that I have let it flow across cyberspace, I shall attempt to return to my reading.

Different Eyes

When I ride the streets of Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua, I see block after block of poverty.

Then I visit El Limonal.

It is 200 huts in what the local people call  the “triangle of death” between a dump, a sewer system, and a cemetery. The residents of El Limonal were relocated here when, in 1998, Hurricane Mitch destroyed their villages.  Residents eke out an existence rescuing bottles, cans, and cardboard from the dump.

I assess it, walking the dirt streets with Maria Saeli of Food for the Hungry, and find a new category: extreme poverty.

Maria hugs three children selling from a food stand. 

She admires a puppy one woman is grooming.

She asks a woman hand-laundering clothes how many days' work are on the line behind her.

“Tres dias (Three days),” is the shy answer.

She says the town now has electricity and water. She stops to ask a man what plants he is watering in his new garden.

Where I see poverty, Maria sees progress.

While I despair; Maria hopes.

She also fosters hope.

Lord, give me Maria’s eyes.

For they are your eyes, too, I think.

And let my hands, like hers, be yours as well.

Taste of Home

We return to our the Hernandez guesthouse after morning worship to find Nathaniel and Josiel Hernandez stacking cement blocks in the side yard. They are making a grill. They laugh and say it’s a “Flintstones grill.”

Three Alaskans—grandmother Irlene, mother Martha, and daughter , Andrea,9,  are hosting a picnic before their Wednesday departure.

The Hernandez family cared for Andrea for her first three years while the Alaskans waited for her adoption to approved. This is Andrea’s first visit back to Nicaragua.

Soon the table is laden with homemade buns, grilled burgers and all the fixings, chips, cabbage salad, potatoes, and two-liter bottles of Coke and Fanta.

While our Nicaraguan host says grace, twenty of us hold hands around the food: a full-voiced 30—something man from Maryland , a family of five from Canada, a twenty-something redhead from Pennsylvania, a Sioux Center CRC pastor and wife, the Alaskan trio, and the Van Klompenburgs.

We eat and talk, sometimes with body language, sometimes in broken Spanish, sometimes with translation. The most popular consonant from the North Americans is “m-m-m-m.”

After dishes, the mother of five sets out a chocolate cake.

I didn’t know I missed North American foods until this feast.

And I haven’t longed for home until this taste of it.

Nicaraguan Miracle

We are at dinner with Pastor Diomedes in Somotillo, a town of 10,000 near the Honduran border. 

We have toured his dynamic ministry—a school, agriculture center, radio station, and a church—which has planted 30 daughter churches in the past 10 years.

A jovial man who loves a good story, Diomedes tells of his first trip to the United States for a Latin American Pastors Conference. At the first meeting, while ending his use of a toilet at a five-star hotel, he looked for the handle.

He hunted beside, behind, beneath—and found nothing.

He sat perplexed.

He could not leave this stall as it was. People would think Nicaraguans were unsanitary idiots!

So he raised his hands, looked heavenward, and prayed fervently, “Lord, I don’t know what to do. I have looked everywhere. I need a miracle. Please send a miracle.”

In faith, he stood up, and God sent a miracle. The toilet flushed!

He praised God profusely and returned to the meeting.   

Only later did he learned that God performs this same miracle each time that stall is used.

It was the miracle of the automatic toilet.

Sending you on...

Spent two days on the road seeing other communities.
Just back.
Interview tonight.
Interview tomorrow morning.
Meeting tomorrow afternoon.
No blog time.
But Marlo is writing an entry to his blog right now.
You can view it at: http://van-nicaragua.blogspot.com
I'll try to blog again on the weekend.

Nicaragua’s Beauty

After Sunday worship at Verbo Church, Luz and Manuel, a husband-wife psychologist team,  graciously took us out for Sunday dinner and a drive through the Nicaragua countryside.

It restored my soul with its open spaces and beauty.

Enjoy the beauty with me in the slideshow at right (the top one).

Mustard Seeds

Reading Suggestion: to understand today’s post, it will be helpful to first read yesterday’s.

Enroute to a youth Bible study in Mateares with Carl Most, we stop for Nelson.

He is waiting on crutches.

Several months ago, he outran a gang-member attacker wielding a machete, but his friend did not.

When Nelson ran back to help his friend, a machete blow nearly severed Nelson’s leg. Physicians later finished the job.

He has had a week of ups and downs, he tells Carl, adjusting to the loss.

This Sunday evening, the eight former members of La Tufalera (The Stench) study Romans 12: “We are all part of the same body.”

As the evening concludes they plan at next meeting to place a plaque on the graveside of a group member killed last August.

When we return Nelson home, his mother asks a favor. Nelson’s father, kidneys ailing from twelve years of toxic-fume employment, is in pain. Can we take him to the clinic?

Of course. 


The father rides in the front seat, his wife in the open pickup bed. Weak-voiced, he says he has been in pain for dos dias (two days).

The clinic blurs as I resist tears. Then I succumb.

I remember that Jesus, too, wept.

I wonder: 

Are tears—both His and mine—the seeds for a "theology of suffering?"

Tunnel

We taxi through Managua streets

roofless tunnels 

walled with shanties, fences, and shops, 

filled  by barks and honks.

Hungry children live in the city dump, 

attacked by flies and fumes.

Hospitals amputate legs 

for lack of antibiotics.

And in Haiti corpses rot.

I crash.

My God, my God, why?

Joel Huyser says we we need a theology of suffering.

At this moment, I have no such theology, 

much less a clever one-line wrap-up for a blog.

The Nicaraguan heavens above this raucous tunnel are

hauntingly,

disappointingly,

silent.

On the Lighter Side

OK, I lied. I’m posting before Monday.

Donna Biddle, the coauthor of our future book about Nicaragua’s Nehemiah Center ended  her  email today saying, “My daughter and I just came back from our mall.  Do you think your mall will be different than my
mall?  :) 

Having just returned from a Saturday shopping outing, I responded, then realized blog readers might also enjoy my  answer to her question. Here
it is:

Yes and no.

Our first stop was the Managua market Huembo (pronounced Wembo, not sure how it is spelled) and it is a polar opposite of your mall--outdoors, canvas covered, sprawling, crowded, vendors hawking from tiny shops, watching us with intently and speaking rapid Spanish or pigeon English whenever we indicated the slightest interest in an item.

We actually went to Huembo by accident--miscommunication with our taxi driver who speaks only Spanish. Our hosts had told us Huembo is not safe unless you have a local person with you. We had subsequently learned, though, that it has a safer tourist section with souvenirs and an unsafe local market section.

After we got over the shock of arriving at the wrong shopping place, we asked the driver which side of the parking lot had danger (peligro) and which part was "no peligro." He gestured. We headed toward the “no peligro” section. He parked the taxi in the shade (la sombra) and we shopped.

Children tried to sell us their crafts made from a local grass. A sad-eyed beggar with a young daughter held out her hand. Food vendors pressed us with samples.

When I asked for a skirt (falda) and the shop owner didn't have it, she called loudly to a friend six shops down that I wanted a "falda.” That owner beckoned me over, ushered me inside, and showed me her wares.

Yes, I did buy a skirt. It was made in Guatemala, sigh, but it was long enough (hard for me to find here) and a neutral crème color.  Nicaraguan primary colors and bright flowers look wonderful in context, but they would scream at people when I get back to Pella.

When we returned, one skirt and one scarf later, our shopping companion Christina—a North American woman staying at the same guest house we are—remembered that the name of the mall we had intended to go to was La Galeria. We asked if La Galeria was near here (cerca de aqui). "Si" it was. So we headed there.

La Galeria is Huembo’s polar opposite. Except for the Spanish names, abundant guards and policemen, it could have been a US mall. Many shops were US chains: Payless Shoes, Hallmark, etc. We hunted unsuccessfully for a deck of cards, bought three double-dip ice cream cones (doble conos) for a dollar each—one for Marlo, one for me, and one for Miguel, our taxi driver.

Final stop was a SuperMercado (supermarket) for a few groceries. It is like a US grocery store with a few clothes, plants, and pottery items thrown in. We asked about a deck of cards there also. The staff told us they had no playing cards, but could have a deck brought in 10 minutes--with the Beatles on them. Cost: $7. We declined.

That’s the news from Lake Managua where all the weather is warm, the children are grass artists, and the shopping is both below and above average.

Blogging Break

Taking a blogging break.
I'll be back on Monday, January 18
Check in again!

Postscript to Yesterday

When I asked Joel Huyser if he had anything to add to my post of yesterday, he said this:

I would also add that the Boniche have come to know God in both the mountain
tops and the valleys.  God does heal. And he does heal miraculously. But not
always. God and his grace can also be found in our valleys and our failures,
even in what may appear to us as God's failure. I think Daniel and Gloria
have learned that through their experiences. 

Signs and Wonders

Sharing our guest house is an enthusiastic American couple. Over supper they tell us about their upcoming conference for 150 Central American pastors, teaching the prayer techniques that have brought signs and wonders to their California congregations. The Holy Spirit’s power, they say is now spreading across the hemisphere as a result.

They tell stories of dramatic stories of a woman walking  after 30 years of multiple schlerosis, of a man rising from a cancer deathbed. Their own sons have been healed, one from a milk allergy, the other from asthma.

They talk about walking the streets near their church one night each week, looking for people needing healing prayer.

I try to suppress my skepticism.

I fail.

The next morning Daniel and Gloria Boniché show me their Nicaraguan church and school. They talk of community outreach. Through training and praying, the Holy Spirit has transformed lives. An alcoholic has recovered, halted his domestic abuse, and now leads a prayer team. A terminally ill student has recovered.

And I believe them.

I tell Latin American missionary Joel Huyser the story of my mixed review: for the North Americans, the wonders usurp their lives. For the Bonichés, it is one part of a total Christian life.

 I can accept the Bonichés’ views, but not the North Americans’.

Joel says gently, “Remember, Carol, extremes breed extremes. Nicaraguan culture accepts the supernatural; North America, in the grip of secular materialism, does not.”

The power of polarization.

Of course.

I carry Joel’s comment with me, filled with wonder, touched by grace.

Nicaraguan Manicure

Midafternoon Tuesday when I return to the Hernandez guesthouse, Sondra is waiting on the porch, manicure equipment at her side.

Last week, when I saw her doing a manicure and pedicure on the veranda for our hostess Leda, I learned Sondra provides her services at clients' homes. I told Leda I might be have time for one on Tuesday.

My Tuesday has filled with work, and the word  “might” must have disappeared translation.

I run up the wooden stairs and trade my jeans for capris while Sondra heats water in the kitchen.

Manicure underway, we learn each other’s languages. Hands- manos. Feet -pies.  Nails-ongos. Fingers and toes share a Spanish name—dedos.

I tell her about three sons, one recently married.

“Una hermosa boda?”  she asks. [A beautiful wedding?]

“Si.  Una boda Christiana,” I answer.

She smiles. A bond.

She tells me she has one son who is indoors. He’s using his cousins’ computer. She is Leda’s sister-in-law (cuñeada).

How did she travel to this guest house today?

Con autobus.

While we chat she works, but not with North American efficiency. Ninety minutes later, mis pies y mis manos  have undergone the most thorough grooming in their history.

I confirm the price Leda has told me. Cuesta siete (seven) dollares?

She hesitates. No, cinco, [five], she says.

An hour ago, Eric Loftsgard told me of Nicaraguan dependency that results from handouts. I debate, then I decide: This is no handout. It is pay for work done well.

I say that five is not enough: “Cinco no esta sufficiente.”

 I pay ten.

 “Dios te bendige,” she says. [God bless you]

He already has.

A Special Place

At nine a.m., I ride with Daniel  and Gloria Boniché to their church in northern Managua.

Daniel is director of the Nehemiah Center. Gloria is an architect and a teacher trainer.

They show me the church they pastor together. A sanctuary banner displays the church mission for 2010: “We speak, we walk, and we believe, because the eyes of the Lord are over us.”

Bonichés  tell me about reaching out to the poor neighborhood to the south of the church in the past five years, and  now it has less alcoholism, abuse, and danger.

Sundays, 500 people worship here. Monday through Friday, movable panels are pulled out, and the church becomes a school for 300.

A few years ago, when the school outgrew the church, the congregation added adjacent classroom space.

Gloria designed both the balconies and the adjacent classrooms. Nearing noon, Gloria invites me to their home. “I want to show you my special place,” she says, voice warm with love.

“Ah, an architect-designer,” I think. “Of course—she loves her home.”

We enter, but she provides no house tour. She takes me directly to the second floor, up rough cement steps, thinly painted walls, through an open-air walkway, to a pair of paneled  doors.

She stops, hand on the door, turns back to me, and says, “I used to climb a ladder and lie on the roof to be alone with God. Slowly, as God provided and allowed, we have made this place.”

She opens the doors to the Boniché  prayer room: tiled floors, elegant wood-patterned walls, graceful windows, and an altar—a wooden stand with a container of papers. She shows me the papers— pages of church needs dotted with  post-its noting God’s answers, other papers with penciled plans.

Here they meet for family prayer, sometimes kneeling, sometimes sitting.

Here when Gloria is seeking an answer to prayer alone, she lies prone before the altar.

Here their daughter Irena, 13, dances praise to God.

It is by far the most beautiful room in their home.

Used only for prayer.

A very special place, indeed.

Day of Rest

No words today. Just a slideshow of the Sunday afternoon walk Marlo and I took to a nearby corner store, the rough equivalent of a Pella Casey's. Our purchase? Two ice cream bars and a bottle of Off. Slide show is to the right.

Graceful Exit

Judi  Hernandez heads for the living room door in a white-lace blouse and capris, curls down her back.

“You are all dressed up!” I say.  “Are you going somewhere?”

“To my friend’s fifteenth birthday party,” she says, and explains, “Here a fifteenth birthday is important.”

“Oh, a quinceañera,” I say, excited to know.” I just read about one in Mexico.”

“They are similar,” she says.

I spew out five sentences  about the quinceañera story an Iowa Latino asked me to edit.

Then I remember another Steve Holtrop comment from yesterday: Nicaraguans value people, take time to listen to them.

 I stop. “You need to leave, don’t you?”

“Well . . . sort of,” she says, reluctantly. “But I’ll be back tonight . . .”

“We have a month,” I add. “Enjoy your party!”

As she departs, I ponder this thing in my heart: At thirteen—her exit interrupted by this sixty-year-old—she listened to me as to a host of angels.

Nicaragua Swing

Last night in the Hernandez living room I edited  interview notes that had been typed at breakneck speed in two interviews.

This morning, on the same couch, I edit notes for a third, then  email them to my co-author Donna Biddle.

Marlo looks up from the Excel spreadsheet he is creating and asks, “Want to sit out in the swing? It would be cooler out there.”

I think of the remaining chaos of photos-not-yet organized, the blog not-yet-written—and I hesitate.

Then I remember Steve Holtrop’s words in yesterday’s interview, comparing Nicaragua and North America. He said, “Poverty is something we all have, and it’s not just financial.”

 “What is the poverty of North Americans?” I asked.

He thought for a moment, then answered,  “ I don’t think we North Americans live in the moment. We have goodness and the blessing of the ability to plan and think long-term. And that IS a blessing. But it is also a curse. When in our planning we think so far out that we forget about the people right here and right now, the task and its consequences are a chain.”

A chain.

I set my laptop on the coffee table and head outdoors with Marlo. In the cool breeze we chat, and swing, and sit. We tell each other about yesterday—my interviews, his piano repair. Marlo says he saw Pastor Ricardo and his wife sitting here last evening. That’s why he thought of it.

I tell him that last fall Pastor Hernandez told his congregation that he had not been spending enough time with his wife, and someone else  would be preaching in his place the month of November while they spent more time together.

The two of them  approach, pleased to see us swinging. We talk of this and that.

I could also get used to this.

This, too, is a kind of first-class life.

Communication Housekeeping

Someone emailed that she was unable to comment on the blog. 
So Marlo and I investigated. 
We are blog novices, but we think you need a Google account to post comments. To create one:

• Go to http://www.google.com
• Click "sign in" in the upper right hand corner
• Choose "create an account"
• Fill in the blanks. 
• If you check the "stay signed in" box you will never, never have to sign in again to post a comment.
• When you have established your Google account, you can go to the blog an post a comment.

Want a simpler way to stay in touch? 

• Send an email to carolvan@iowatelecom.net. 

Several friends have already done that and I thank you!

Capital Sins

Two days. Four interviews. Not enough for a book yet, but far too much for a one blog entry.  I’ll choose one story

Nicaraguan Roger Pavon (at left), works with Community Health Evangelism. Its goal is a unified response to  both the great commission and the great commandment. Roger told it to me as we sat in the kiosko (gazebo) in the Nehemiah Center courtyard.

He said Thomas Ruis, Pastor of a Nicaraguan church, used to believe that church was where all God’s work happened.

But God worked in his life to see that God’s world is bigger than the church. When he realized that, he announced to his hard-working, lower-class congregation, “From now on we will not meet on Sunday mornings.”

Roger told me, “In Nicaragua, saying that is a capital sin!” Then he grinned.

Pastor Thomas had continued,  “ You have to get up early and work long hours six days a week. You need to sleep in and spend time with your family on Sunday. Play games with your children. Go for a picnic. And at 6 p.m. Sunday evening, then you come to church.”

He also reduced the number of church meetings from seven per week to three per week. And he stopped to talk with alcoholics on the street, instead of avoiding being polluted by them. He formed  “community rescue teams” who asked the community what was needed and then organized garbage cleanup and worked toward bringing in electricity.

For 20  years church membership had hovered around 30 people. In first six months after  his dramatic shift, the membership doubled. And then it doubled again.

And it all started with creatively canceling a morning service. And living as Christ in the community.

Hm . . . .  When Luther said, “Sin boldly,” did he also mean capital sins?

Do I dare to follow this story where God might lead me?

From the Photo Files

Marlo and Claude Zylstra dig holes for
bouganvillea in 2008.

Bouganvillea seedlings waiting for planting
in 2008.

See the Tree, How Big It’s Grown

After lunch today, Marlo and I walk the Nehemiah Center grounds, see the vocational school under construction, the Nejapa Christian school, and  the thatch-roofed ranchero where we ate many meals with the Faith CRC team of two years ago,

Then we walk toward the barbed-wire fence where that team planted 100 bouganvillea , using pick-axes to pound holes into the cindered soil. They carried bags of seedlings, three different pastels, to the fenceline, patted them in, and  hosed each one with water, carrying buckets where the hoses failed to reach.

And then they left.

I wonder if some plants, at least, survived, and if they’ve grown.

When we approach, I see no fence—it is overtaken by a wall of shrubs, blooming three different pastels.

Marlo stands under a branch and I take his picture. A fragment of an old song comes to mind: See the tree how big it’s grown. But friends it hasn’t been too long. . .”

It hasn’t been too long. Just yesterday they were bagged seedlings.

 “I’ll post this on the blog for team members,” I say. “They will be pleased.”

I think that God is, too.

Culture Shock

Our first class seats are front row. Spacious leg-room. Ample seat width. Leather. I am glad I decided to wear my all-black skirt-sweater- tights combo instead of my turquoise warm-up suit.

The flight attendant hangs Marlo’s jacket in the closet, hands us pillows.

The tourist-class passengers file past. “Don’t look up,” I tell Marlo. “Pretend to be involved in something important. That’s the way it’s done. I’ve seen it.”

He reads. I keystroke.

After take-off the attendant respectfully offers us washcloths, dangling dainty and warm from a tongs. With clean hands we eat warm peanuts, drink juice, and order dinner.

We accept the offer of headsets and watch a movie. When Marlo is chilly, the attendant returns his jacket.

Waiting for the Chicago to Miami flight, I scorned the first class people enter before us with their silk suits and lifted faces. “Have to see themselves as one-up,” I thought. “Whatever for?”

As the attendant gathers our dinner plates, I wonder how much more these seats might cost, and whether we could justify the expense.

I could adjust to this first-class life.

Then, thinking ahead to Nicaragua, I realize that over the years I already have.

Travel Adventure

When we  get our Des Moines boarding passes at the automatic check-in kiosk, our names are mis-spelled. We are  now ”Carolg and Marlog.” A Des Moines security guard says something unintelligible about our name spellings at the security check-point and waves us in.

The Des Moines–Chicago–Miami legs are uneventful:  walk, wait, fly; walk, wait, fly.

In Miami, we walk 20 minutes from our American Airlines concourse to San Salvador’s Taca Airlines. A prim and perfect check-in clerk scans our passports and baggage claim tickets, then asks us to be patient. Something-or-other is going to San Salvador and back for checking.

“What is she sending?” I ask. Marlo doesn’t know.

“Are you checking our name spellings?” I ask.  I knew those typos to be trouble!

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, waving a petite hand to hold these two towering tourists at bay.

We wait.

She hands back our passports and baggage claim tickets. The machine spits out boarding passes, and she steps from behind the counter to award them to us.

“You worry too much,” she says to me, a Latino mother chiding a wayward daughter.

Marlo grins and nods.

She smiles back and continues.  Then she tells us that when her friend travels and things go wrong, he says, “What an adventure!”

“That is the way to travel,” she says. “It is all an adventure.” By now, I’m smiling too.

She hands us our boarding passes.  “You’ve been upgraded to first class—enjoy  your trip!

Transition

I pack suitcases with three telephones on the bedroom dresser: personal, business, and cell. Before the suitcases are full, all three have rung.  I answer.  Tomorrow, someone else will.

I tell Write Place staffer Kathie Evenhouse the domestic  secrets  of the home-based office I share with her.  If you need to wash a load of mugs, the dishwasher soap is under the sink. Leave the bathroom door open so pipes don’t freeze.   If you smell sewer after a few weeks, run water in basement shower. Unused too long, the plumbing trap empties and smells invade.

I look around. How will I view my house on my return? Will it look different to me?

I have emptied the refrigerator one meal  too soon. So we eat a last meal at George’s Pizza.

Afterwards, bags packed, house in order, I pull out my Nicaragua resources. I begin to remember the pre-dawn bird calls, the eight-foot poinsettias,  the diesel smell, and  the speed-of-light Spanish.

I turn my face toward Nicaragua. I am eager to head out.

Whatever Are We Doing?

This morning Marlo stopped looking at the barren oaks in the back yard and asked, "Do you ever ask yourself, 'Whatever are we doing? What on earth were we thinking?'"

"No," I answered, then looked at him. "Were you thinking that just now?"

"For a moment," he said.

With a to-do list and a deadline, I hadn't asked that. Not for a moment.

But now, as the sun sinks orange behind the oaks, I think: Whatever are we doing?

Our longest-ever trip was been two weeks. With three sons. Seeing the East Coast relatives.

We didn't need passports. Foods were familiar. Natives spoke English.

A month in Nicaragua? What were we thinking?

Two years ago we spent ten days on a Service and Learning trip to The Nehemiah Center. Two years ago, Marlo said, "Maybe we can volunteer more time here when I retire." Two years ago, we felt nudged to more of this serving-and-learning.

Since then we've achieved a me-Tarzan-you-Jane level of Spanish. We've read about the pros and cons of volunteer service. We've discovered that sometimes well-meaning helpers can hurt. We've been taught that cross-cultural communication is tough and tricky. There are no quick-and-easy paths to transformation, in our own lives or those of others.

But the nudge has endured, the calling to a long obedience in the same direction.

Whatever are we doing? Our best effort in whatever God puts before us, I guess. 

A phrase from Sunday worship returns: "Our best efforts like rags." We won't do it perfectly. Not for a moment.

Rags. I sigh.

Then I remember.

There once was One in swaddling cloths. Rags are enough.

Better than a Thousand Words

Wondering Why

Last evening I said to Marlo, "Before a trip, I can clean corners of chaos. But the rest of the time, I can't get to them. Why?"

Yesterday, I sorted all 2009 medical bills and applied for reimbursement. My New Year's resolution to sort them monthly had never materialized.

A six-inch clutter of paper has moved from my desktop to a file drawer or trash. A box labeled "VK mail" now perches neatly there, and Write Place staff will fill it in the coming month.

I have read Deb Jansen's notes on social networking--which had been on that "intended pile" for two months.

Laundry is folded into drawers. The door to the sun porch is labeled, "Keep this door open."

My usernames and passwords have been entered as electronic notes in Outlook. For the first time in a year, the batteries on my mini-keyboard have a charge.

This Sunday morning on the couch, computer on my lap, I'm still wondering why.

Is it a simply a larger version of the need for clean-underwear-in-case-of-a car-crash? The desire for a pleasant return from Nicaragua? A hunger for order that surfaces with deadlines?

I know only this: looking at this pristine order provides me pleasure.

Darn.

I see an overstuffed magazine rack across the room.

New Year's Day: Minus Five and Counting

Looking at Pella snowdrifts, I envision coffee plants and banana trees in Nicaragua five days from now. It will be the dry season with temperatures of 60-75 degrees. I'm hungry for sun and warmth--but the to-do list comes first.

I listen to Spanish CDs while I move houseplants to the sun porch for easy access for Ben Vos when he waters them.

Marlo and I both add extra data to our laptops--including MP3s of our Spanish lessons. Maybe we can do a little more cramming during the flight.

I add $25 to our my SKYPE account so I can call friends and clients as needed.

We email to confirm our guest house arrangements with the Hernandez family and arrival time at the Managua airport.

We collect "must-remember-to-take" items in the guest bedroom.

And then we sit to watch BBC's "Planet Earth."

It is, after all, a holiday.