for mom and dad

When I was growing up, my parents had a rule: No television until homework was done. Sometimes they relented and gave me 30 minutes of PBS (Reading Rainbow, anyone?), but most of the time when I came home from school, I had a quick snack, perhaps a little playtime, and then it was up to my room to work.

My parents very rarely checked my homework, but I remember there came a point in high school when I started asking for help—especially with math and science, my weak subjects. Both my parents went to college and are extremely well-read, well-educated people—so even when I was frustrated at not understanding something, I always knew I could turn to them for help (even if my stubbornly independent self didn’t actually want to).

These memories came back to me in a flood yesterday because of a conversation with Aurora, who comes to our house once a week to do laundry and such. She is a sweet spirit yet also tough as nails, and though her family’s daily life is very challenging, her emotions are normally kept well out of sight.

Until yesterday. As Aurora was preparing to leave, she asked to talk to me for a few minutes. ..and she proceeded to tell me about a lot of the struggles her family is facing right now with the rising prices of everything… “Mis hijos siempre me piden cosas, y tengo que decirles que no podemos…”

It was when she told me about her teenage daughter, though, that her eyes started to water up. “She was so upset last night because she didn’t understand her homework, and she asked me and her dad for help, and we couldn’t help her….we never studied these things.”

We talked a bit more about how it’s important to be able to give children not just the physical things they need, but even more so, love, emotional support, a sense of security and protection in the midst of a dangerous world. “I am sure you give those things to your children,” I tried to reassure her.

But later after she left, I felt a whirlwind of emotions. Sadness. Guilt. Helplessness.

What would it be like to see your daughter struggling in school and not be able to help?

As I reflected on our conversation, I suddenly realized yet again another dimension of how much I vastly underestimate the inherently privileged position I come from….how the simple fact that I had parents who could support my education (maybe not financially, but with their knowledge, experience, and example of appreciation for learning) is nothing to take for granted.

Through the years many of my closest friends know that I often have been hard on my parents for not being or doing certain things…but after yesterday, I am resolved to spend much less time complaining about the past and more time being grateful for the many intangible gifts my parents have given me….like Aurora, they did the best they could with what they had.

And there is grace to cover the rest.

I love you, Mom and Dad.

of pollos and theology

"We were just talking and all of a sudden we heard the sound of chickens," Leah explained. "So we looked around and sure enough, there they were on the floor in the front of our microbus."

That of course was too good a photo opp to pass up. I've seen a lot of animals in unexpected places in Nicaragua, but this one was right up there. The most interesting thing is how calm the 4-5 of them were, just quietly enjoying the ride across town as we took the students to the Baptist Seminary for a class on liberation theology. It sounds kinda strange, I admit--what in the world do the Baptists have to do with leftist ideas like that?

But, actually, the Baptist Seminary here is and was the hub of higher theological education in Nicaragua. Today, it's still the only one that isn't only for denominational church preparation. And during the 60s and 70s its entire teaching methodology took on the form developed by Latin American lib theologians, for which they got a lot of flack from some of the more conservative wings of their own denomination as well as other Christians.

A lot has changed since the 1970s, of course. Liberation theology has basically slipped into the history books, other than a few small communities and practitioners. But what our guest speaker, a pastor and faculty member at the seminary shared with us, is that the heart of liberation theology for him was always about a certain way of looking at the world around us, listening to the reality that surrounds us, and reading the Bible with a profound interest in what light it would shed on how to respond to those realities, especially to the suffering of others.

"I could preach a sermon this week about how the dead in Christ will rise first," Pastor G reflected, "and make the people feel better about being hungry and dying sooner to be with Christ sooner...but that's not what it's about. It's about what we do about hunger. It's about justice."

He went on to describe how he saw threads of commonality running through Jesus' message to the religous of his time, the message of the Reformers in the 1500s, and the cries of liberation theology advocates in the 1960s-70s. "In one way or another, they were also speaking truth to power," Pastor G shared. Reminding people of God's truth, our true access to Him, His compassion, His outrage over the plight of the poor.

He admitted that he felt many liberation theologians lost their way by separating Christian ethics from political/social action, but defended others like Archbishop Romero in El Salvador who was killed for "simply daring to call upon the governing authorities to stop the violence against the people."

We still need voices like that today. We still need to look at the Scriptures and look at our reality and speak truth to power. Even it means losing our lives. I wonder if we truly believe that nowadays. I wonder if we truly believe what Jesus himself said.

“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

flowers

I love flowers. I have probably taken a hundred photos just of Nicaraguan flowers in the last two years.

There is always beauty to be found if you look for it. I find I appreciate it so much more here because without it, it is so easy to be overwhelmed with despair.

dame Tus ojos...

“Que se atienda al que llora y al que sufre,
Y se busque al hermano en desamparo.
Que busquemos tu rostro cada día.
Y seamos instrumentos en tus manos.
Que tu palabra en mis labios siempre abunde,
y abra caminos de paz en mis hermanos,
Para aprender la humildad y mansedumbre
De Jesús el pastor de los humanos.”
-Citado del Canto de Los Líderes

La primera vez que escuché este canto fue en noviembre del año pasado en un evento de estudiantes universitarios aquí en Managua. Inmediatamente el canto me tocó de manera profunda porque siempre he sentido un llamado a los que sufren, a los olvidados del mundo…siempre he querido ser este tipo de instrumento en las manos de Dios, que muestra la paz, el amor, y la compasión de Jesús a los demás. Siempre he creído que una de las maneras más poderosas de mostrar el evangelio—las buenas nuevas—es a través del servicio hecho en humildad, o aun en secreto.

Lo canté otra vez el julio pasado en México, acompañada por 100+ estudiantes y líderes del movimiento cristiano universitario a nivel regional, y otra vez la canción me impactó, pero por otra razón. Esta otra razón es que había estado en una lucha personal que realmente no me dejaba, que me distraía, que me llevaba muy lejos de pensar en hacer mucho por otras personas, porque vivía una realidad diaria que me consumía tanto que ni tenía espacio en la mente por otras cosas o personas.

Cantándola me hizo pensar mucho. Quería volver a ser esta persona más preocupada por otras que a mí misma. Quería dejar de ser tan egoísta. Pero a la vez me di cuenta que esto no iba a ser posible sin una sanación profunda de las heridas mías sufridas en los últimos meses, sin una reconciliación nueva con mi Dios, sin una conexión más real con El de lo que había tenido hace un buen rato.

Doy gracias a mi Señor que hace un mes, El puso alguien (de hecho, algunas personas) en mi camino que me han ayudado salir de la oscuridad y vergüenza donde vivía. Sin embargo, todavía sigo siendo una persona herida, una cisterna con rajaduras. Pero algo pequeño sucedió hoy que sirvió para recordarme que aun así, Dios quiere usarme.

Por la tarde, iba saliendo de la iglesia, buscando un taxi, cuando vi una anciana hablando con un taxista. Pronto el taxi salió y la dona quedó. Caminé rápido para tratar de alcanzarlo, pero se me fue. La doña, con ropa humilde y un mimbre para ayudarla estar de pie, me preguntó dónde iba. Le dije, y ella dijo que iba en el mismo camino; me pidió que le ayudara a encontrar un taxi. Se acercó otro taxi, y pedí el precio para nosotras dos. Pregunté a la doña si pudo pagar, y ella me dijo que no, que si le podría ayudar.

Sentí un nudo en mi garganta y le dije que sí. Ella me dijo, “Dios le bendiga”. Montamos en el taxi y fuimos a su casa, que estaba en medio de un sector muy pobre de la ciudad. Pero su cara feliz, la sonrisa con la cual salió la doña del taxi cuando llegamos era más que suficiente recompensa.

Quizás no fuera un gesto tan generoso, ni tan profundo en medio de todo el sufrimiento del mundo, pero por 20 minutos, mi mente dejó de pensar en mi pequeñas dificultades y se enfocó en lo que debe ser la vida de esta señora que ni podía regresar a su casa después de ir al hospital.

Ahora me pregunto, ¿cuánto más amor podría mostrar, cuantas más palabras de vida podría compartir, cuanto más podría ser un instrumento de Su paz, si dejara mis propias luchas más a menudo, si tuviera mis ojos más abiertos?

48 hours later

[In which I translate live on Baptist radio, ride in the back of an open pick up truck, traipse through creeks, help share Bible stories, learn a new Spanish song, get chocolate frosting on me, and finally decide to buy new shoes.]

And that's just the highlights. Wednesday morning I took off for Somotillo/El Ojoche with the New Song team from southern California who were going to be spending the week up there building relationships, sharing God's love and preventative health lessons, assisting in the construction of two water retention tanks (one of which is almost all done thanks to a high level of commitment from the community itself), and learning about the families' daily lives through visits to see their patio gardens and getting pottery making lessons (I keep missing that last part--next time!).

Somotillo is about 4 hours northwest of Managua, on a fairly decent highway that turns pothole-y about 3/4 of the way there. It is the last real "town" before the border with Honduras, and it's where the team's (our) hospedaje (digs) are. After settling in a bit, we took off for El Ojoche, with the esperanza that even though it had been raining for a week straight, we would be able to somehow get through on the dirt-turned-to-mud road. Unfortunately, it was not to be. About 1/2 way there we ran into an enormous muddy mess that had even derailed some buses--and we realized we were not getting through--and we were still too far to walk (even for the teens in the group). So we turned around and headed for the Baptist church, which also has a radio station--and we attempted to send a message via radio up to the community (hoping someone was listening--of course, we found out later that the power had gone off up there, so no one heard it--but it was my first time to translate live on Nicaraguan radio!)

Thursday we tried again--and although we had a Plan B (take another FH co-worker's vehicle across and shuttle people up), it actually wound up being "Plan G" (for God) because even the 4-wheel drive Land Cruiser wasn't getting through. Instead, there were two pick up trucks there which we contracted to take us and all our supplies the 6 or so kilometers up to El Ojoche. It was certainly bumpier--but a lot more scenic--and the carsickness-prone folks in the group held up a lot better.

After a round of introductions and a big community meeting, the team and a group of Ojoche residents set off on a community clean-up, which involved these neat home-made brooms, walking around (or in some cases, through) a creek that divides the community), and up a giant hill to the endpoint (the school).
My 3-year old sneakers were in pretty bad shape already (the soles are separating from the shoe), so I was extra careful to not step in water--just mud and stones--with the help of several ladies who laughed with me as I jutted from one "safe spot" to another.

At the top of the hill, we all paused to rest, and I saw this cow standing all by itself on the hill and decided to get a closer look. Meanwhile, the ladies in the community all shouted at me to be careful because she was "brava". But I survived the encounter unscathed. :-)

While we were up at the school, I also spent some time talking to my new friend Licha, one of the founding members of the Community Health Evangelism committee in the community.It’s amazing to me that even though I have only been up here like 5 times in the last 2 years, so many people remembered who I was and greeted me with great warmth and enthusiasm. One of the other ladies, Concha, who I have written about before, saw me, and said, “I thought you were not going to come greet me.” I told her I hadn’t seen her at first, but that I was so glad she was there. (The last time I was in the community, she had invited me to her house to watch her make pottery.)
After a delicious lunch, some weather issues changed the original plan for the afternoon and the team wound up hanging out with the kids (balloons are good for hours of fun, they discovered)…and I spent my time translating the conversations between them, and answering various questions about Nicaragua and the community.

Friday started similarly, with a bumpy pick up ride, followed by a morning chock-full of excitement. First the team split up into 3 rotations to teach brief lessons on hand-washing, dental hygiene, and do a craft. I was with the hand-washing group, which used chocolate frosting to illustrate the way germs can be passed if we aren’t careful. The kids thought this was extremely funny and giggled the whole time as we all proceeded to pretend to get sick from the chocolate.

The second set of rotations was sharing bible stories, and I was with the “Fall” group, and helped Sue, one of the team members, translate. The team had brought down these felt blankets and cardboard cut outs to visually represent the story, which the kids also really liked. And I got to put on my drama hat, which was really fun. I also learned a cool new Spanish song called ‘Rey de la Jungla’ which I may share with you one day.

In the afternoon, the teens and some of the adults went to play soccer while I stayed back with some of the others who weren’t up for that and we hung out with some of the younger girls who were fascinated by braiding hair and singing “Eres todopoderoso”.

Each night I also participated in the team’s devotionals, which was really special. They are an awesome group of people, and I am glad I got to be part of their experience in Nicaragua, even just for a couple of days.

This morning I left them in Somotillo (they’ll be there ‘til Tuesday)—I left at 7:30am from the border, and got back into Managua around 11, where the first order of business was to upload pictures — and the second, to buy new sneakers. And third, to share all of this with you.

baking night in las brisas

"OMG, that's mold growing on those bananas," exclaimed Leah when she walked into my kitchen last night and saw the frozen bananas on the counter. I chuckled.

"No, no," I reassured her. "It's just frost." And to prove it, I quickly ran my hands over the skin, immediately uncovering the very black skin that lay beneath. Bananas go bad quickly anywhere, but they have an even shorter "shelf life" here with the constant heat and humidity (and no air conditioning), so I frequently wind up throwing one or two in the freezer--and tonight was the night we were finally going to do something with them!

I had invited the Dordt College senior girls (who are in Managua this week for their teaching practicum) to come over for dinner and baking (Leah is the baker-- I think Sonya and Sarah just came for a change of scenery and internet access :-))

After some delicious pasta, Leah and I tag-teamed the preparation of a banana bread mix (her recipe) while sharing funny cooking stories. I joked to the girls after we took the "before" picture posted above that the mixture looked a little like upchuck. But an hour later, the end result was delicious.

Between the 4 of us, we downed almost the entire first loaf (lucky me, I got to the keep the second one). [In the middle of all of this merriment I also killed a very large cockroach in our living room.]

Afterwards, Sonya and Leah decided to read aloud from a cute Nica children's book I just bought called "Un guegue me conto" which is like a folkstyle retelling of the origins of Nicaragua and its people. One day maybe I'll share some of it with you.

All in all, it was a really fun evening and I am looking forward to the next one (cookies!!)

my latest cultural outing

Nicaraguan and Cuban history are very much intertwined (especially since the 1960s)--and their intermingling of revolutionary fervor and cultural appreciation was very much on display this past week in Nicaragua's National Theater.

Last Wednesday night a variety of Nicaraguan dancers and musicians payed tribute to Cuban Culture Day by offering us (me and my friend Renee, and 500+ of our fellow aficionados of good Latin music) a full repertoire of some of the most popular songs to come out of Cuba in the last couple centuries. From afro-caribbean dance to classical big band 40s style to tropical flavor to the acoustic wonders of Silvio Rodriguez, it was a spectacular show. At the end, the dancers even came out among the audience and danced in the aisles. (Wish I had pictures of that, but it all happened so fast...)

I have to say, I have become a huge fan of all kinds of Latin music since I have moved here--Mana, Juanes, Alex Campos, Juan Luis Guerra, Julieta Venegas, Los Toros Band, and many, many more. But my latest musical addiction is without a doubt Silvio Rodriguez. I can't even put it into words, but this man's lyrics (and chord progressions)--even when I don't understand all of them--move me deeply. Just have a listen...





Me siento muchas veces que soy como este corazon que Silvio describe, un corazon con muros (aunque quizas no tan fuertes porque todavia entra mucho dolor), que se esconde, en fuga, herido de dudas de amor...

broken things

"You can have my heart, but it isn't new.
it's been used and broken and only comes in blue.
it's been down a long road and it got dirty on the way,
If I give it to you, will you make it clean
and wash the pain away?

You can have my heart if you don't mind broken things
you can have my heart if you don't mind these tears
'Cause I heard that you make all things new
so I give these pieces all to you
If you want it you can have my heart."

From Lucy Kaplansky's heartbreaking beautiful song Broken Things..a good theme song for me lately

all this beauty

For Dawn, who posted a photo on her blog that reminded me of this one that I took on my very first trip to Selva Negra in the central mountains of Nicaragua back in August '06.

Why do I have a feeling this is only one of many nostalgic posts to come over the next several months?...

para un amigo lejano

O amigo mio, ¿donde fuistes?

En un momento de vulnerabilidad
te di una parte de mí
de mi pasado, de mi vergüenza, de mi alma
nuestras conversaciones eran como regalos inesperados
pero las tomé como un señal que Dios no me había dejado
Y que todavía me buscaba

Dentro de poco
me dio perdón y esperanza
un nuevo corazón y una nueva canción
una candela encendida con que enfrentar la oscuridad
la libertad de mirar hacia el futuro

Pero ahora me ha llegado una nueva lucha,
que en verdad es la manifestación de una vieja
el no sentir abandonada o deprimida
en mis momentos más solitarios
después de compartir mis emociones intimas con alguien

O alma mía, ¿por que soy tan débil?

Te permití llegar a ser muy querido
pero ya sé que no puedo depender de ti
aunque quisiera

Como pajarita, tengo que salir del nido
y confiar en Aquel que devolvió el sentido,
que me dará la fuerza para volar

O amigo mio, ¿donde fuistes?