Ashes to Ashes

Tomorrow my team leaves me, taking with them I hope a new sense of adventure, curiosity and understanding.  Though this week presented many challenges to me, I am grateful for the wonderful time I’ve had to get to know not only a new group of North Americans but also a new group of Nicaraguans.  Saying goodbye to new friends is always hard, but it is a beautiful example of how quickly God can open our hearts.

My team, seven teenagers and two adults from Pella Christian High School, had the opportunity to stay with host families in the northern city of Chinandega.  An adult team from Pella also joined them in Chinandega, their mission slightly different from ours but overlapping from time to time.  Five churches in Chinandega hosted us and welcomed us into their midst: they led an inter-church soccer tournament in which our teens joined as a competing team (we won 5^th place!), they set-up a day trip to a pool fed by natural springs where teens from the churches could hang out and get to know everyone as well as hear a message from the Bible, they held an inter-church youth service in which teens from all the 5 churches as well as our team participated, and a variety of other activities.  Our team also visited a school here in Managua and each shadowed a student their age to get a new perspective on education in a different context.  In all, the goal of their trip here in Nicaragua was to open their eyes to the Nicaraguan youth and the lives they live.  And the best way to teach anyone this is not through a textbook, seminar, webpage, or blog.  The best way is simply exposure, the more the better.  So, if you don’t understand someone, go live with them.  That’ll give you a better idea where they’re coming from :)

Ash boarding at Cerro Negro

We also had some time for having some fun and enjoying Nicaragua.  We took a half-day and traveled with all of the host families to the beach using public transportation (which is an experience in and of itself).  We climbed the active volcano Cerro Negro and went ash-boarding down it (think sledding but down a volcano).  We wandered around León a bit, climbed its cathedral and enjoyed its views of the city, sampled fresh fruit smoothies and haggled our best at the souvenir stands. 

As often as we could, we talked with the teens about what they were experiencing, what they were surprised about and what they were curious about, what they loved and what they found challenging.  In a poll, the thing they loved most was the new relationships they made with youth here as well as with their host families.  One of the students commented about how hosting their families were: “Jesus welcomed the stranger.  They welcomed us.”  They also said it has encouraged them to reach out more to the international students at their school, the strangers in their land and be good hosts to them.  The hardest thing for everyone was the language—being high school Spanish students didn’t prepare them fully for an immersion experience!  In all, they’ve expressed excitement about their trip and a desire to return and be with their friends again someday.  Mission accomplished.

Tomorrow I will drop them off at the airport in the early morning, take a bus back to my house in León, and crash in the hammock with my kitten and a good book J

And then it’s back to work.

Stay tuned!