At the end of 2012, my career came to an end when the company of my 25 year employment downsized. In the 8 months since then I have been considering what the next phase of life will be.
I explored some jobs outside my experience, and also began to volunteer. Ozarks Food Harvest is very user friendly and quickly adopted me as a known individual. Here I have been exposed to those who are on the fringe of the world I live in everyday. I also was reintroduced to the non-profit that works exclusively in Nicaragua, The Rainbow Network. During this time I also participated in the One Run For Boston cross country relay. All these things were asking me for time and money for someone I would never really know.
What kept coming to mind was Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). The question "And who is my neighbor?" kept nagging me. Was it the people at the food distributions? The victims of the Boston Marathon bombing? The people in Nicaragua who want for a house, job, medicine, and education?
Of course I knew the answer. Jesus tells us in the story, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." It is all of them.
In one week in June, I worked at Ozark Food Harvest, ran a leg of the One Run For Boston and volunteered at The Rainbow Network office.
Within in a couple of weeks, Regina and I found ourselves planning for a trip to Central America. Nicaragua, to be specific and not exactly a vacation. It was, I hesitate to use this term, a mission trip. How did that happen.
Mission trip often conjures up visions of going to a place where you are totally inconvenienced by the location. You know, sleeping on the floor of some church, no showers, working hard everyday for and with people who don't have the will or means to do what you can do. You do it for 3 or 4 days or a week, and then you come home and everybody either says what a saint you are or wonders why those you went to help can't do it themselves. It can be really awkward, because it is neither of those, and there's no way to explain it.
We didn't have it rough, we stayed in hotels and had showers and hot food, but we did work hard!
Regina was on the medical team with 15 other people and they traveled to rural areas where they conducted clinics in schools and peoples homes. They worked with the six Nicaraguan doctors that work for Rainbow Network. Communicating via translators, they traveled to some very remote areas where they dispensed medicine, listened to peoples' complaints and were amazed at the resilience of people who have lived poor and oppressed for so long.
I spent my days helping build houses.When I say helping, that is exactly what I mean.
The Rainbow Network has been at this for awhile and make no mistake, the Nicaraguans were in charge and they know what they are doing. This is not mission work of directing and supervising, no way, this is Americanos (what we were told by the Nicaraguans to call ourselves, not gringos) lending a hand.
We did grunt work, literally. All of us. Americanos and Nicaraguans. Together.
We dug holes, grunting to drive the rock bar deeper to break up hard pan clay was necessary or to throw a shovel full of dirt up and out of the hole.
We grunted moving hundreds of concrete blocks fire brigade style up the bank to the house site.
We grunted sifting sand and carrying 5 gallon buckets of cement up the bank to pour footing and foundations.
We grunted tying wire time after time on re-bar to make reinforcement for houses. We grunted,we sweated, we became tired and silly sometimes.
So we laughed. Together.
We laughed about not understanding each other.
We laughed about getting soaked in a rainstorm.
We laughed at threatening goats and stupid jokes.
We laughed and smiled with children who couldn't keep their eyes off us while we watched their classroom.
We laughed with people who were so happy to get a micro loan to keep their business open, or build on their house.
We laughed with translators who thought we were silly.
Then as we were leaving, we prayed with these people that God loves.
We prayed for their new homes.
We prayed that God would bless them.
We prayed that others would give to Rainbow so more could be done.
We prayed that they would not give up.
We prayed that we would not forget them and that they would pray for us.
And though there were times it made me sad or uncomfortable to be there, it did not break my heart. I thought of Jesus' words about showing mercy. Although in the story it says the Samaritan "was moved with pity." I believe that what these people need is mercy, not pity.
And so I'm going with mercy, as defined by Dictionary.com:
"an act of kindness, compassion, or favor: She has performed countless smallmercies for her friends and neighbors.
By the end of the week we had shared acts of mercy together.
We arrived on Sunday and we flew home on Saturday. I have not been able to stop thinking about Nicaragua since then.
When we got back Megan Munzlinger (Development Director of Rainbow) gave me a copy of Meet Me in Managua a book that tells a brief history of Nicaragua and the story of Keith and Karen Jaspers' vision for The Rainbow Network. Now that broke my heart. I recommend it. Read it before you decide if a charity deserves your support and especially before you go to Nicaragua.
This week in a conversation with someone who had been on a mission trip to Mexico, the person commented. "But didn't you find the people to be happy?" Happy? I told this person that I wouldn't say "happy", ambitious yes and seeking a better life. I don't know about happy.
When I told Regina about this she said, wisely, that she thought maybe it wasn't so much "happy" that was Nicaraguans state of mind, as it was that they were able to find "joy" in their lives despite their situation.
That, my friends, is probably a thought for all of us to ponder.
Peace.
