I wanted to go to Nicaragua to help, to try to do something for God I have always felt I should be doing. Even though I lost my way for a while, when I got back on the right path the desire was still there. When I first arrived my thoughts were along the lines of "yes these people are living poorly, but they are only just behind about 30 years or so from us in the United States. Kinda like when I was a kid". The houses we saw for the first few days were mostly concrete and lots of them were very nice for their needs, at least what you could see in passing. The ones that weren't so much I thought of the stories that my parents and grandparents told of how things were when they were growing up. Poor and not knowing where your next meal was coming from. Only they at least had board houses that had floors even if they did have cracks big enough to feed the chickens under the house through. My grandparents and Tony's dad would tell me stories of making their own soap, salting their meat to make it keep because they had no refrigerator, no Christmas gifts all over the floor just maybe one or two things if you were lucky and maybe a piece of fruit in a sock that was hung, among other things. These people in Nicaragua didn't even have that. Dirt floors, tree limbs holding up plastic, tin, cardboard boxes, or whatever they could use to make a shelter. They seemed happy enough. Even in the most poverty stricken place we visited the people would ask for us to pray for ourselves for what we were doing. How humble is that?! God is doing great things through El Ayudante. Please keep them in your prayers and the people they are trying to help.
Since I have been back I have been so emotional. I have been looking at things differently. Trying to motivate myself to stay on track with the discipline we had when we were there of keeping busy preparing ourselves for the next time we went out to witness and deliver care packages. They were so open and loving. It reminded me of being a child. Of living in a family that didn't have much, of course we were rich compared to these people but in our society it makes a huge difference in how you are treated. I can't stop myself from crying over the things that bring such pain in the children's lives around us. I didn't realize how much I had allowed myself to become numb to those feelings. Those feelings are helping me to remember a little more of who I am and what I stand for. It is ok for people to not like me, it is ok for people to make fun of me for living for God, it is ok to be a good person and not be cool and/or tough all the time, it is ok to hurt and cry, it is ok to stand up for what I believe maybe just with love instead of so much anger, it is ok to be open about who you are and what God has brought you through..... Not that I hadn't been realizing these things before, but they are becoming more emotional for me and not just knowlegeable - if you can understand that.
