Mission - The Kindness of Strangers

Monday morning, 9/2/13, Chinandega,  Nicaragua.  The day broke open through clouds across the mountain peaks in the distance, like the chorus of a well-loved hymn. 

Each morning that week, I went upstairs to a table on the tidy verandah above the cafeteria, to drink unsurpassed coffee, watch the morning arrive and to journal, study and pray.  My journal entry the day after the volcano is hilarious - I incorporated some of it into yesterday's post, but I will spare you the bellyaching about my glutes and lower back pain.  Oy.

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Another reason I've always been gun-shy about mission work stems back to Market Square Mall in Knoxville.  Market Square is an outdoor venue where businesspeople "do" lunch, farmers sell fresh vegetables during harvest season, and barflies (such as yours truly, once upon a time) frequent the nightclubs on the mall at night.

When I was a paralegal working for a downtown law firm a few blocks from Market Square, I used to take an extra-wide detour around the sandwich-board preacher screaming at passersby on the street corner about their certainty of damnation if they didn't stop and let him berate them one-on-one.  He shoved terrifying tracts about lakes of fire in the hands of those poor souls fool enough to slow down near him, and I decided that if that was how God expected people to "share the good news", then He could count me out.  No thanks.

Thus, my historical perspective on the prospect of mission work was that I would have to beat people over the head with my Bible and scare them into faith in a God they may or may not have heard of before but still convince them that He loved them, and I would be required to do all this effectively in Swahili or Afrikaans.  Again - no thanks.

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That Monday morning, the PB&J team from yesterday got assigned to do PB&Js again.  I didn't want to be Jelly Girl again, so I shamed one of my team members into wielding the jelly knife.  (Turns out peanut butter is just as gross when you have to make 60 sandwiches.  Just sayin.)  We loaded up the bus and rode out of Chinandega to La Chuscada, a community of families living in tiny cinderblock homes just off the main highway but with no running water or bathroom facilities. 

A few words about Amigos for Christ and their mission -- Amigos for Christ focuses on meeting four basic needs:  access to clean water and modern bathrooms, healthcare, economic opportunity and adequate nutrition.  (please visit the Amigos for Christ website for more details.) 

Let me remind you that I am a reformed party girl from east Tennessee.  I've peed and pooped in country outhouses and concert porta-potties and just plain bare-assed out in the woods more times than I can count, but I've always had the luxury of knowing that there was a clean white porcelain toilet somewhere in my immediate future.  It never dawned on me until September of 2013 that having a toilet was a luxury which an overwhelming majority of the world doesn't enjoy.

Pausing here for a minute to pontificate about an important topic which doesn't get enough airtime - it's poop.  I won't do it justice, so I will send you to this fabulous TED talk which we watched while in Chinandega (Rose George Talks Crap).  Please please make time to watch it.  It will make you uncomfortable, I promise.

Anyway - I tell you all that to say that the rest of our week in Nicaragua was primarily spent digging ditches to lay pipe so that the families of La Chuscada would soon have the joy of a real bathroom.  Not really what I would've thought of as mission work.  When would we be spouting Scripture or baptizing people in a river?  I didn't see that anywhere on the itinerary.

How were we supposed to teach people about Christ, digging ditches?

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The first family we served was actually a collection of relatives with homes spread across a common lot.  Our team split up into groups, each assigned to dig a trench from one of the homes to the main line out by the road.

The work is hard, but simple - one person swings a pickaxe to break up the soil, then another comes behind with a shovel to clear out the loosened dirt.  This was the substance of our activity all day, every day for the bulk of the week.


Did I mention it was really hot and humid?  Just as they did on Sunday, the Amigos team reminded us frequently to drink water and take breaks.  Such was our first morning, digging and shoveling and resting and drinking water and then doing it all over again.

A special gift from the Amigos for Christ team was the abundance of awesome music all week.  Whether riding the bus to/from La Chuscada, or working our butts off in the damp hot sunshine, we were immersed all day long in some fabulous music.  (To my friends on Spotify, I made a playlist called Amigos 2013 if you'd like to sample some of our daily fare.)  


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The matriarch of this family compound was a lovely woman named Graziela. 

She brought out plastic chairs for us to sit in while we ate lunch. Towards the end of our lunch break, we started hearing rumbles of thunder growing quickly closer.  The accompanying darkened skies told us to get ready for a doozy.  I nervously envisioned the Boy, sprawled out in the dirt after being struck by violent Central American lightning while the pickaxe was in mid-swing.  Surely they would send us back to the bus.

But no, nobody was moving towards the bus.  The rain began as a sprinkle but quickly became a downpour.  As the storm intensified, Graziela beckoned us inside her home. 

Graziela and Mateo
(and her beautiful handmade curtains)

We brought her chairs back in, into a main room where it was obvious that these chairs were the main furnishings anyway.  There was an old fashioned sewing machine, and an ironing board with an iron, and then an incongruous computer monitor on a table (with no computer or keyboard). 

There was a random hammock strung across a corner of the room, and an intricately handcrafted rocking chair...and then a series of tiny rooms curtained off from the main sitting area which we later learned were their bedrooms.  There were family photos on all of the walls.

She showed us her kitchen, another room adjacent to the main sitting room and primarily comprised of a large woodburning stove with no ventilation other than the doorways with no doors.  She insisted that her grandson share some of his sweets with one of the Amigos girls and me - little single-serve fruit treats that put me in mind of a jello shot from the old days (sans bug juice, of course.)

Again, I find myself struggling to describe the emotions of that afternoon. 

My Spanish is pitiful - me hablo espanol muy poquito - and I barely understood a word that Graziela or her husband Mateo said to us during our time together.

But I understood her smile and her warmth and her kindness in opening her home to a bunch of strangers, to keep us dry and safe in a storm.

Mission - Surprise! (Part One)

Our bus ride from the Managua airport to the Amigos for Christ compound in Chinandega was on a proverbial dark and stormy night.  I couldn't see much of the passing countryside, except during occasional bolts of lightning.

A funny tidbit - in the weeks beforehand, I pestered my friends who'd been on this particular mission for packing tips.  Here are a few of their recommendations:

• Bring clothes you don't care about keeping, because you won't want to, and the people there will wash them and give them to people who need them after we leave.
• No, you don't need a blow dryer.
• Pack your clothes inside large plastic bags inside your suitcase so they won't get wet.  (huh? get wet?)

Well, on the ride to Chinandega that night, I understood the last one, because our luggage was lashed to the top of the bus.  And no, I hadn't heeded that particular pointer, because it didn't make sense to me and I'd failed to ask why it was important.  Luckily the tarps over the load did a good job of keeping most things dry.  Most things, anyway.

Our accommodations were the first of many surprises for me.  I'd envisioned the possibility of squalid huts with cots and mosquito nets - but the Amigos dorms were just that - dorms.  Electricity, curtains, bunk beds with sheets and pillows, large community bathrooms (with doors!), and fans - plenty of fans.  Fans on the ceilings, clip-on fans on the beds...lots of fans.

Hmmm.  This week was already shaping up differently than I'd imagined.

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Day One of our itinerary was a Sunday and was set aside for recreation and worship;  no work on day one.  No, day one was slated for a leisurely hike on a nearby volcano.

We were broken up into two teams of six;  our team assignments for the week were to make the daily PB&Js and to fill the giant water coolers with water and ice.  My team was on PB&Js for day one;  we created an assembly line, and I was the jelly girl.

Unlike the microbus from the previous evening, we piled into a generic yellow schoolbus which served as our transportation for the rest of the week.  I was glued to the scenery, face pressed against the window like a little girl, as we departed comparatively urban Chinandega and traveled into the rural countryside. 

It was on the bus ride that I got my first glimpse of real poverty, the kind where people barely have shelter from the weather or enough to eat.  And yet...as we forged on, bouncing up muddy wide swaths which served as "roads", people waved and smiled and went about their day.  The children especially made a point of running to the roadside, wildly jumping and laughing and waving at the busload of gringos. 

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The soil got progressively darker as we drew closer to our destination.  Cerro Negro is among the Pacific chain referred to as the "Ring of Fire" and is an active volcano.  The name represents the black volcanic ash comprising its face and much of the surrounding area.

As we got off the bus, our Amigos for Christ mission team (the REAL mission team, the young people who have signed a 2 year commitment) explained some choices and requirements.  There were two ways to tackle the volcano;  one, straight up the face, and I do mean STRAIGHT UP.  The second was described as a less arduous but still challenging hike up and around the back.  It isn't hard to guess which one I chose.  The Boy chose the hard way.

In addition, the Amigos team (about whom I will have a lot to tell you, in a separate post) was extremely firm about taking plenty of water with us.  Good lord, kids, we're going on a hike and you want me to haul this giant heavy bottle of water too?  How about I just drink a bunch down here and then I'll take a little with me and get a refill when we get back down.

(Ummm, no.  Probably the only thing I ever saw those guys get twisted up about was making sure we drank enough water.  I soon learned why.)

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And now I will attempt to describe one of the most literally monumental experiences of my life.

The majority of our group chose to climb the nearly vertical black face of Cerro Negro, while I joined a smaller team of ladies older than me;  both parties were accompanied by seasoned Amigos for Christ missionaries. Now, I've hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains dozens (hundreds?) of times in my life, so I wasn't particularly intimidated by the hike itself;  I had strapped on my trusty old Merrells, and I was ready for anything.

Did I mention that Nicaragua is remarkably hot and humid?  We weren't ten minutes away from the bus before I was pouring sweat.  Not dewy, not glistening - drenched.  I quickly came to the realization that I was going to look like hell for the next week, and I was a tad amused to also realize that I didn't care.

The next 60-90 minutes serve as a wonderful snapshot of who I am at my best - and my worst.

My worst:  I quickly lost patience with myself and my companions.  This was much harder than any stroll in the Tennessee woods - even the Chimneys pale in comparison.  I can't imagine what climbing the front of Cerro Negro must be like, because the "easy" way was brutal.  At one point, we were clambering over rocks and boulders with practically no sure footing or clear path upwards.

Did I mention that I was the youngest woman?  Yet the other ladies kept getting ahead of me!  It would infuriate me to find myself lagging behind, so in a fit of unseemly pique and adrenaline, I would surge forth, pushing towards the front of our party and showing everybody just who was who.

Yep, I showed everybody alright.

I would end up a few short paces ahead of the group, panting and guzzling my precious water and then bending over to ease the stitch in my side.  Once I even led us off the indistinct path and up a series of rocks that simply weren't meant to be climbed.  Yep, I showed everybody.

Our Amigos guides gently reminded me that we were not in a hurry, that this wasn't a competition - this was meant to be a day set aside for enjoying God's creation and each other.

Humph.  Easy for them to say, all athletic and cute and in their 20s and barely perspiring at all.  And yet, I experienced a fleeting understanding of what they were telling me - and how it applied to much more than a sweaty hike in Nicaragua.

My best:  (This is harder to describe, because I have trouble in general acknowledging that I'm not all that horrible or unique after all.)  Initially, I had a very hard time accepting help from the Amigos team.  Clearly, they knew what they were doing, and I didn't want to be perceived as the idiot gringa from the sticks who couldn't haul her wide backside up the mountain.

The encouragement and Christ-like patience and kindness they exuded was unlike anything I've ever experienced, before or since.  A helping hand here, an insistence to rest there, an offer for a pinch of salt (miracle cure for overheated nausea) - the sincere desire to help me conquer my physical and mental resistance was new and awkward and wonderful.

And on we went, up and up, across rocks and intermittent dirt paths, spiraling up through a verdant panorama that was bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean in the distance and endless rolling hills on the other.

There are few words to adequately explain how I felt when we crested the summit.  Relief certainly, but astonished achievement, profound gratitude and overwhelming faith in a God I'd long believed in but that day drew me in close (warts and all) to His heart.

Cerro Negro is an active volcano, so the rim is warm and there are little pockets of steam here and there.  It was surreal and amazing to sit down on the surface of such a powerful force of nature.






My firstborn and me, 9/1/13
Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

the tiny white speck is our bus
at the bottom of the volcano

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Coming down was also quite an experience - instead of going back down the way we'd come, we went down the face that everyone else had climbed.  The black ash wasn't firm, so you would sink with each step, and the steep angle was disorienting.  Unlike the Boy, who ran and even body-surfed down the volcano, I awkwardly stumbled and tumbled, ungracefully picking my steps and squeezing the hands of the two young men who ended up as my kind-hearted escorts.

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One of those escorts was named Jack, and he presented me with one of the biggest surprises of the entire week.

Jack, you see, is a gorgeous young man.  Beautiful eyes with unfairly long lashes, dark complexion and athletic build - this boy must melt hearts in multiple time zones.  Men who are that attractive have always made me uncomfortable, mostly because of the things I sometimes tell myself about myself, which are unkind and not fit for repeating in polite society and I wouldn't say them to my enemy's dog.  Men who are that attractive have historically been nice to me for only one of two reasons:  one, they felt sorry for me; or two, I had an attractive friend with whom they wanted to hook up.

Yet this young man, this Jack, he didn't seem to feel particularly sorry for me as he encouraged me up and then back down the volcano.  Endless patience (I would've been exasperated after the first 15 minutes) and grace and a gentle barely-recognizable reproof when needed - these are among the gifts I received from this boy.   And since I was pretty sure he wasn't trying to hook up with my other travel companions, I marveled and wondered about his motives the rest of the afternoon.

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That evening after dinner, we gathered for a concluding time of devotion, discussion and prayer.  The Amigos team took turns leading the evening devotionals (a "devo" as they call it), and Jack led it that night.  He read the passage from 1 Kings 19:11-13, where the Lord commanded to Elijah to go to Mount Horeb where the Lord was going to pass by.  There came a fierce wind, and a terrible earthquake, and a consuming fire...but the Lord was not in any of those.  The Lord instead came to Elijah in a gentle whisper.

Jack closed his Bible, and recounted the sights and events of our day.  The beauty of the countryside, the magnificence and power of the volcano, the promise of a mighty ocean in the distance...God created all of these things.  He created EVERYTHING.

And yet, He is not in those things, said Jack.  He is only in us, His greatest handiwork, for He breathed life into every single one of us with that gentle whisper and calls us His own, His beloved children - more beautiful and precious than any wonder of nature because we are where He lives.  He lives in us and equips us to care for and be kind to each other...whether climbing a volcano or shopping at Kroger or driving on the interstate or meeting a need in a third world country.

Therein was the first of many surprises that week, this wise teaching from a committed young Christ-follower.  I realized that evening that the ugly things I say to myself aren't true - they are lies from the pit, carefully crafted to render me useless and miserable and mean.  And absent frequent prayer, study, meditation and fellowship, I am gullible enough to believe them.

Surprised by truth - I couldn't wait to see what God had in store for Day Two.

Mission - Prelude

In most 12-step organizations, the third step requires that one must turn his/her will and life over to the care of God as you understand Him.  Lots of folks give this one a polite nod and keep going, because a) nobody REALLY understands Him, and b) what if His will requires me to do something I don't want to do?  Umm...no thanks.  It's MY will, it's MY life, and assuming I even believe in Him in the first place, I will let Him know what I feel like fits with my agenda.

I imagine there are correlation statistics of third step adherence to relapse potential.  But I digress.

Besides, what if He wants me to go be a missionary in Africa or something?  You just can't trust somebody who had His only child punished and killed in exchange for the crimes of a bunch of people who probably won't believe it happened anyway.

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A few years ago, I got my hypersensitive feelings all in a knot during a discussion about mission work.  "We're all on a mission", said I, to the group of Christian women with whom I'd retreated for the weekend.  The issue in question was:  what constitutes "mission" work?

A couple of my fellow retreatees, who have devoted large chunks of their lives to domestic and overseas missions through both short-term physical service and ongoing financial support, were all noisy and passionate about Jesus' specificity in Matthew 28:  "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Well...ok then.  That's what he said;  and since I do believe that business about this guy being God's Son and that he died for me and was subsequently resurrected, I take him at his word.  Go.  Make disciples.  Teach them to obey what he said - and since everything he said was out of love and concern for mankind, it makes sense that he wants people to hear about it.

Go.

All nations.

Go.

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But I didn't want to go, so I didn't.  I am adept at the art of rationalization, and I've made all kinds of things fit the challenge of the Great Commission. 

We sponsor a couple of World Vision kids in Africa, and we are faithful to our pledge to our church (and some of that money is used for mission work, so that counts, right?)  The Mister used to go on Saturday mornings in Knoxville to make pancakes for the homeless ministry downtown, so I think we get to count that on our list of things we've done as mission work.

(What's that you ask?  Well, no, I didn't go make pancakes myself, but I watched the kids while he went, so I should get half-credit for the sacrifice.)

I have led a women's Sunday School class for four years, and I make sure that the Boy and the Girl are plugged in with the church youth group, and we even ponied up for the Boy to do an inner-city home repair mission trip to Pittsburgh this past summer.  Since he is the fruit of my womb, I took partial credit for that, too.

See, God?  I'm doing my part here, to make disciples and to teach people your word.  Just please don't make me go anywhere, especially somewhere hot.  I'm not good at being hot.

This is what I've told myself and my Creator for years and years and years.

He thinks I'm a riot.

He had a different plan.

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And so it was that I found myself standing amid piles of duffel bags, supplies and luggage on the sidewalk outside of the Managua airport a few Saturday nights ago.  The Boy and I had accompanied ten of our friends from our church for a week-long mission trip to rural Nicaragua.  We were waiting for the microbus that had been arranged to drive us the additional two hours northwest to Chinandega.

Yes - I was tired and it was hot and humid and potentially stormy, and the "crummy me" inside of me downshifted into crabby mode.  What had I been thinking?  What was I doing here with these good people, going to do good things?  I am not a good person by nature, you see.  I play one at work and church and sometimes in public but there is something dark and angry in me...and sometimes it tells me I don't belong with good people.

But there was no turning back, so I chided Crummy Me for being a pill and worked up some artificial enthusiasm for the bus ride ahead, into the unknown.

More mission memories forthcoming.

Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, International Terminal - 8/31/13