Last night, I arrived back into the United States from a week long trip to Nicaragua. It was an amazing experience; one that moved me to tears on more than one occasion.
I went with 38 Senior High kids and other adults from Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, where I am a counselor for our Youth Group. The goal of our mission was to serve the surrounding schools and communities of El Ayudante, an outreach facility where we were staying in rural Nicaragua, outside the city of Leon.
During our trip, we engaged in daily construction and taught Vacation Bible School. Each day we would visit a different school to engage in activities with school kids, ultimately seeing over 300 children. We did crafts with them, took pictures, played games, sang songs, and gave out sandwiches and milk. For some of these kids, that sandwich would be their only meal of the day.
Construction wise, we were there to help build bathroom facilities for a school of over 150 students and put up fences around a newly built medical facility. Each day that our bus drove up to the schools, kids with smiling faces would run to greet us with huge hugs. We actually mixed the concrete by hand, or by shovel, I guess you could say, which was extremely hard, intense physical labor and the cold showers at El Ayudante felt great after a hard day's work. The labor was incredibly rewarding, as each day we could see the impact and progress we were making to help the kids in the barrio. A good bit of the time, the Nicaraguan kids wanted to jump right in and help us with our labor. Some kids would be helping shovel gravel and dirt with shovels that were taller then they!! The kids that weren't shoveling were entertaining the rest of us by jumping on our backs, playing with us, or asking to be thrown up in the air. I cried when I had to leave the kids on the last day. Their love was truly unconditional; their lives simple. The lessons they taught me about God and love were more powerful and impactful than I could have ever imagined.
Our food was pretty good while we were there. I ate rice and beans more that week than any other time in my life though, and eventually transitioned to the good ol staple of PB&J. I think between all 38 of us, we probably went through at least 38 jars of it! The fruit was great and El Ayudante even grew its own pineapples. Half of our crew ran into Montezuma while we were there, which I guess goes with the territory of traveling to rural Central America!
Nicaragua has some 20 active and inactive volcanos, and we were fortunate to visit an active one before we left the country. We did not get to see any liquid hot magma spouting out from it or anything, but did get to peer over the edge of the previously blown out center, which was constantly billowing out thick, sulphur smoke. It truly was amazing. One of the boys on the trip lost his hat over the edge with a strong gust of wind, thankfully the only sacrifice we had to make that day! We made an afternoon trip to the beach as well, which was quite refreshing and great to see yet another part of the country.
All in all, this trip provided an expansion of my horizons and an opening of my heart to compassion and unconditional love. The smiles on the faces of the kids we met will remain in my heart for many days to come.
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