Family Pickup

Leyda has fixed Nicaraguan chicken soup for dinner. Something light and good for the stomach, she says. She joins us at the table but doesn’t eat. She had late lunch and then an afternoon coffee and her stomach is a bit off.

Her son Ariel sits at an adjacent computer, supplying occasional translation as needed.

We ask about new guests we’ve heard will be arriving. On the 24^th, she tells us. That’s our last night here. Four couples, she says. North Americans attending a conference at the university. They learned about this guesthouse by word of mouth.

We inquire about the second vehicle they had last year, a pickup. We haven’t seen it this year. “We gave it to the church,” Ariel translates.

“So now many people are now able to use it?”

No, we got it wrong. 

Ariel explains. The Hernandez family sold the pickup and gave the money to the church. 

For a special project? Yes. So the church could make its monthly loan payment. We talk about the Nicaraguan economy in recent years--r ising prices for food, electricity, gas—but no increase in wages.

It is OK, they say. It is OK without the pick-up, and if we get another sometime, that will be OK too.

We talk about the volume of Verbo church music. I show Leyda my video of morning worship with its tireless dancer in the front row.  He is a devoted man, she says, very grateful to God. His family has experienced several miracles after much prayer. A daughter with vision difficulties, a wife with asthma. . .

We hear a car pull into the driveway. Leyda greets two North Americans. They need rooms for two of the couples tonight instead of the 24^th. Is it possible? Claro gue si. (Of course.)

She returns to the table, and excuses herself with a broad smile. She needs to prepare for guests.

Trailing clouds of glory as she carries sheets to the bedroom, she says, “God provides!”

I guess he does.

Someday, perhaps, even another pickup.