gracias

dear sweet family & friends,
thank you, thank you, thank you.
all your prayers and thoughts and words of encouragement have meant the whole world to me. I've loved sharing with you and blogging about all the fun/hard/beautiful/wonderful things I experienced in Nica! It was truly one of the best months of my life. I'm home now, and could still blog for pages about things I got to see, things I miss like crazy already, and things I've learned and will continue to learn. But instead, I just wanted you to know that I appreciate each of you TONS. I am all kinds of blessed to be loved by such wonderful people, that's for sure :)

con amor siempre, siempre

today:

I ate Elena's french toast for breakfast. Paola, the little preschooler afraid of gringos, smiled at me in class instead of bursting into tears. I got to eat Creamas on the Flores' porch and talk to Dayanna and Olga and Lorena about life and english and spanish and writing poetry. I got to say goodbye to friends at Mi Comarca. My feet got really dirty. I purchased a final choco-banana. I had to chase away a dog while walking to Farito. I played Duck-Duck-Goose by candle light at Carmen's house when the power went out because of the rain. I got to snuggle with Marcos. Jan found a grub three inches long in her make-up bag. I had gallo-pinto for dinner. I heard a chorus-song of "see you soon!"'s when leaving 13.5 for the last time. I realized that as much of a wreck as I am about leaving, the one thing Nica has taught me the most clearly is that life is beautiful, even when it's hard. I guess you never know what things or places or people you are going to fall in love with, but I sure am glad that, for whatever reason, I fell in love with here.

buenas dias!

Good morning, everyone :) It's my last day in Nicaragua. I'm trying not to be sad, so I'm looking at this photo. Meet Marcos, my Nica love. Dare you not to smile when you see his.

where freedom lives

Today I met a little girl who was stolen by gun point from her home in rural Nicaragua when she was seven years old. After she was taken, she was sold as a sex slave to a hotel in Managua for $7.50.

I write this not to make you sad, but to make this clear - the world is a broken, messed up, nauseating place sometimes. Children are given away by their parents into prostitution. Women sell their bodies because they have no other source of income. Police officers visit brothels in the name of sex instead of justice. Little girls are made to believe that they are only worth the monetary value men pay to abuse them.

Darkness is not hard to find.

At House of Hope today, we got to talk with April, the director of the program. She told us stories of the women and young girls who live there and also the hundreds who come to make jewelry every week. The mission of the organization is to lift women out of prostitution and to save children from sexual trafficking. According to April and others working at House of Hope, prostitution and sex slavery is a rampant problem in Nicaragua. Whole generations of women sell their bodies, making it the norm for families and for young girls to accept that as their future. The government is doing absolutely nothing to stop this. In fact, when asked what was being done by police man and officials to end brothels, April answered "well, they are being good customers." All of it feels like a desperately dark, unchangeable issue.

A few weeks ago, following a trip to chureca, Trey and I had a conversation about the idea of freedom and what that means. It seems that people in poverty are ultimately not free because they are stuck in the day to day. They don't have the means to imagine a better future. They cannot really save for a bigger house or a better location or a fun trip because they have to survive and put enough food on the table each and every night. And sometimes, not even that is possible. In the same way, these women I've been talking about aren't free either. They are stuck without an advocate, forced into prostitution because they cannot envision another option. They are bound up in the ugliness of it, and it becomes a nasty, viscous cycle.

But you know what else? Bondage isn't simply found in Nicaragua. It's right in our homes too. In that same way that people living far below the poverty line here are without freedom, it seems like me and you and most other people in the U.S. are missing something. As a whole, we are bound to our things. Our happiness is circumstantially based on what we've got, what we wear, what we drive, what name-brand university we attend, where we go out on the weekend, what we can afford. We are blinded by our materialism and our ideas of success, and we cannot imagine a greater life that isn't wrapped up in those things. We aren't free.

But then I think of the little girl I was introduced to today. She walked in from school, smiling and running to hug April. At House of Hope she has, well...hope. She has a future that doesn't involve prostitution. And one day, she will leave, having been given the skills she needs to hopefully stay out of that lifestyle and support herself by other means.

And that is freedom through and through.

Where does it come from though? If government officials can't really give it to us, and if people can't provide it, and if the things we buy aren't lifting us up and loosening our chains, what is? When I walked out of House of Hope this afternoon, I noticed a cross hanging from the wall above the work-room, and it was there that I got my answer.

Where the spirit of the Lord is, THERE is freedom.

I cannot trust in programs to defeat poverty. I cannot trust in good luck or apathy either. Both will fail. I could live in the most lavish circumstances with every opportunity at my feet, and if I don't have the Lord there with me, I am bound up in every sense. It isn't about the greatest methods or challenging government officials or giving things or getting thing, although all of that might be wonderful and I think can result after first acknowledging what is of the utmost importance - we've got to recognize where freedom really lives. And when we do that, we'll soar.

on being challenged

This weekend was beautiful. Ometepe & volcanoes & beaches & sunshine & laughing until we cried & really sweet sunsets & riding ridiculous Nicaraguan buses & visiting Casa Bernabe & getting tears in my eyes to see Erlinda still wearing the friendship bracelet I made her & so many other things I could blog about for pages but won't. (you can simply enjoy the pictures on my previous blog post :) )

Today I am antsy. Not only because I am leaving on thursday and feel no where close to ready for that, but because...well, I don't know. Just feeling unsettled and challenged and unsure and lots of things I can't identify. Maybe this is some sort of mid-college crisis. Nicaragua has ripped me apart in what is probably a great way, but is also very hard to figure out.

Being here makes me feel like I could do anything with my life. I feel like I could spend myself loving on people in poverty for the rest of forever and be ridiculously happy. But then I think about all the constraints of the world and about going home and college and I wonder how I'm going to figure out where it is that I should place my passions. How is what I'm studying preparing me for what I'm supposed to do? How am I best equipping myself to serve people? What skills do I have and in what areas do I excel? What things should I investigate in terms of a future career/job? I have seriously no clue. But I've met so many incredible people here who have worked hard and pursued their passions and now live lives fully dedicated just to loving people. That's what I want to do - just love people really really really well the way the Lord loves them. But I'm not sure how that will materialize or what I do to get there. Is it simply alright for me to study English because I love it, and to trust that God will somehow use that in me? I don't know.

A new friend and fellow Wahoo, Jackson, was here with us for a week doing research on the role of faith in NGO's. We had a couple cool conversations just about service work and about viewing poverty with biblical eyes rather than with our own perspectives. It's challenged me a lot just to think of things like that while I've been here, and to have other people confront me with such concerns. I've been thinking about things like freedom and what that looks like for someone who lives in Chureca versus someone who lives in America. I've been thinking about Isaiah 58 and the definition of restoration and how I fit into that. I've been thinking about language and the ways that service and love expand beyond it. Gosh, I've been thinking a lot of things apparently!

Sorry this is the most rambling, nonsensical blog post ever. But the point is - I'm being challenged. I'm being shaped into something new. I'm not sure how all these things will pan out and transform me (maybe I'll never know the extent of it), but I'm sure that they will. And as I start looking ahead to going home, I know I have a lot of processing to do that will extend far past my time here. Maybe a little bit of this antsy feeling is more like excitement, because I sort of feel like the Lord is building me up for huge things. We'll see :)

the best fin de semana ever

iguanas in the pool house roof

on the gray patio around the pool,
the rain is giving new arms to puddles
and new mouths to grow
fat and gobble up the ground.
we are watching with
eyes hungry,
ears and skin soaking in the sound of
a million drops pounding
and the flood dripping from the ceiling onto
the floor.

inside the roof of the pool house
are several iguanas -
green scales and claws.
they are scratching their way
around the dark tunnels above
and I imagine them creating maps,
asking for directions.
I imagine them curling up in bed
and tucking in their small iguana children.
I imagine the beat of their tails
as the rhythm of lullabies.

Last night, I slept beneath
a tin roof.
It was raining then, too, and the storm
was music on the space above my head
and in the sound of breeze in the cracks
of wood panels making walls.
Early in the morning, a mango fell
on the roof.
I was afraid only for a second
and then I smiled.
It’s funny how things put together
sound pretty.

And it’s this afternoon,
sitting in the pool house
with iguanas and their busy schedules
that I am thinking:
It seems to me that somehow,
in spaces above our heads,
we are always making homes.

muchas cosas

Have I made it clear yet that I love Nicaragua? Because I'm head-over-heels.

It feels like so much has gone on in the past two days...I just got back to the Manna house after spending a little more than 24 hours out in the community and in programs, etc. I get really bored just writing out what I've done, so I'll make a little list and hopefully it will encompass some of my recent activities.

My Nica obsessions:

1) Fanta naranja (I'm not much of a soda drinker, but man-oh-man do I LOVE orange soda here. I seriously cannot get enough of it. They use real cane sugar in gaseosas (sodas) here instead of high fructose corn syrup, and it tastes fabuloso)

2) rando holidays (on Sunday, it was Dio de los Madres, mother's Day, and kids seriously got THREE days off of school for it. Yesterday was Dio de los Ninos, Kid's Day. We had a big fiesta in Tuani Hour, complete with a massive pinata and cake. I feel like there is always some festival or celebration going on here, and that's pretty cool)

3) the kids of 13.5 (I spent the night with a family in a community called 13.5 last night. It was such a blast! Carmen, the mom, is so sweet and wonderful, and it was a good time for me to practice spanish, because she doesn't speak any english. I had such fun playing futbol and other various games with Tatiana and Michael and Geral and Lester and Marcos and Freiddy and Norma and all the other precious kids in that neighborhood. This morning, Karen, a girl around my age who lives nearby and attends an english class I help out with, came by and we played Diddy Kong together. It was such a cool experience to live in the community for a day...maybe I'll blog more about it later)

4) Spanglish (Since my spanish is no bueno, I kind of like to mix it up with english now and again. (but, I will say, I have learned a TON since being here, and am now determined to do something when I get home to learn more). Actually, everyone in the Manna house seems to be fans of Spanglish. For example, we will often say "Are we vamanos-ing?" for "are we leaving now?" I think our favorite phrase, though, is "se fue", which translates to "he/she left". We like to use it for pretty much anything. Anytime something has run out, or someone leaves, or we can't find something, we'll dramatically flip out hand and say "SE FUE!" or add an -ed. For example: Where is the micro? I don't know..it se fue-ed. )

5) Cuddling (Today in preschool, I read with a little snuggle-bug named Adilece...she was so precious and just curled up next to me to look through books. She decided she would be the one to "read" to me. She'd quickly flip every page and go "entonces eso, entonces eso, entonces eso, EL FIN!" Also, Mi Comarca has the cutest little gatitos (kittens) you've ever seen. Every time I go past there, I just want to go in a snuggle with them. The weigh practically nothing and have the most adorable "meows" (Actually, one of them is named "Meow"). No run in with Spanky yet, but hopefully that'll happen soon)