dear friend...

Your photo sits on my nightstand in a tiny white carved frame, one of 2 I brought with me from home (picture frames were low on the packing list 6 months ago.)

I think about you almost every day, but I haven’t talked to you in what seems like forever.

I’d like to tell you what’s been going on lately—how much fun I have with the Nica women I work with, how one of them gave me a necklace she had bought for herself just to try to cheer me up the other day, how microbuses almost seem like an ordinary form of transportation now, how we’re planning a baby shower for someone, how every day brings a new project or opportunity.

I’d like to tell you what I’ve been struggling with lately—how I’m questioning the way I spend my time, my purpose and if I am making any difference at all, how finding God is often harder here than it was at home, how desperately I’d like to find a small group to join in my church.

I’d like to tell you what I’ve been learning about the people and culture of this beautiful land of lakes and volcanoes through their stories of resilience, patience, suffering, and love.

I’d like to tell you about the things that have made me cry in the last week—events around the world and down the hall.

I’d like to tell you about the roller coaster of emotions I’ve felt in the last two months—fear, excitement, hope, anger, pain, contentment, jealousy, sadness, joy.

I’d like to tell you a lot of things—the deep and not-so-deep, the colorful and gray, the ordinary and once-in-a-lifetime.

And I’d like to listen too.

I may be far away, but I still want to share my life and my heart with you.

Please don’t forget me. I love you.

-pjn 11/24/06