It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, so I wanted to give everyone a mid-month update. Here’s what’s been happening:
We arrived in Jinotepe, Nicaragua at the beginning of the month. We’re back at altitude, though nothing like Bolivia. Just enough to make for some extra cool nights and mornings with a fair bit of rain each day.
We arrived to the sound of cannons being fired throughout town. It sounded like gunfire in the streets, and I imagined people walking around, shooting guns in the air. Our pastor told us no, that the sound was from a festival being celebrated for St. James. The gunfire/cannons were how the people were going to “wake up” James from the dead.
When we went into town for the first time, we saw people dressed in velvet cloaks with masks depicting James. Even little kids were wearing the masks. It was kind of disturbing. The masks reminded me a little bit of the Guy Faulks mask from the holiday in England (“Remember, remember, the fifth of November”).
Honestly, all of this really disturbed my spirit. James was the brother of Christ and a leader of the Church. It felt wrong for him to be depicted in a similar fashion as Faulks (who was a terrorist), and it seemed like the people were worshiping James (instead of Christ, who died for their sins)–in fact, our host flat out called it idol worship. But we weren’t in a position to do much about it, so I just prayed for the people and hoped the gunfire would stop soon.
As a side note, the cannons/gunfire hasn’t stopped. Even today, we heard (felt) them as we were evangelizing, and it’s been two weeks since the festival ended.
The ministry here is pretty intense, and this month’s been tough so far for many reasons. First, we aren’t cooking for ourselves, which has been a much bigger struggle than I’d anticipated. When meal time comes, we are served heaping amounts of food—mostly carbs served on top of carbs (a la pasta served with rice and a side of bread. And the portion sizes for breakfast and lunch are so big that we oftentimes have a hard time finishing; but then the time between lunch and dinner is often 8-10 hours, and the portion size for dinner is much smaller, to the extent that some people have gone to bed hungry.
This probably sounds like it’s not much of a problem. I mean, back home it’s easy to explain that a portion size is far too large or that you’re just extremely full and unable to finish. But in Latin American culture, people show love by serving lots of food; so even if it’s just heaping amount of rice with no healthy sides like vegetables or meat, that’s people’s way of showering us with affection.
We definitely haven’t wanted to insult our host, and we’re trying our best to honor what Jesus commands in Matthew 10:10. So we’ve been graciously accepting the pastor’s hospitality and trying to eat whatever we’re given.
Aside from the food situation, we’ve also had long ministry days. They usually start at about 7:00 am (recently, for special church services, it’s been 5:00 am!), and on the days we have church (which is four days per week) we’re doing ministry and attending services until 8:00 pm or later, with dinner being served sometime after 9:00. We also have evangelism, home visits, and/or more manual labor throughout the afternoon.
Okay, reality check: I’m tired, and I don’t just mean sleepy. A lot of us are feeling this way: tired, worn down. We’ve been gone for several months now, eating and living and sleeping in places that just aren’t home; we miss our friends and family and long for simple things like bathmats and clean showers, ovens and hand towels.
The traveling is really hard, too. Travel days have lost their zest and lack the excitement we used to have about going to our next country. Many of us are also dealing with personal items breaking and/or wearing out: clothes, shoes, earbuds, Kindles, laptops…even my guitar is broken (the body is coming apart, so I’ll have to see about getting that repaired).
Needless to say, I was feeling pretty exhausted by the time month eight started. And just when I was starting to get used to our latest schedule, with it’s early starts and odd eating hours…and just as I was ready to get back into an early morning workout routine (exercise boosts my energy levels and helps burn off some of the carbs we’ve been having to eat), something happened that was completely unexpected.
After shoveling a large pile of dirt outside the church one day, I got injured and had to see a doctor. It was my back—a pretty wide muscle group on the right side—and even large doses of Ibprofen weren’t helping. The doctor prescribed muscle relaxers and pain killers, and they worked! After just a couple of days of resting and taking the meds, the only thing hurting was my wallet (I had to pay for the hospital visit and medication—it wasn’t much by American standards, but I don’t have many personal funds left by this point, so it was a lot for me).
I have lots more to talk about, including the story of a homeless man we witnessed to and tales from a three-day ministry tour we did of this region. But this blog post has turned out much longer than expected, so I decided to split it up into three different posts. Part two to come in a few days.
For now, signing off! Much love, FROM THE HEART OF NICARAGUA!
