New Life Assembly

Teamwork - Nicaragua Reflections (Part 4)

I played sports when I was younger, though I was never really very good at them.  One thing I learned early on was that the team that surrounded you was very critical to success or failure.  My first year in Little League my team was awful - we ended the season 1-15.  But in Senior League (think Babe Ruth league) I was part of a championship winning season.  In neither case was the success or failure all due to my skills as a ball player, but had much more to do with the teams that I played on.

As we set out for this mission trip to Nicaragua, I think I understood that perhaps the one factor that would contribute more to our success or failure on the trip would be the way that our team interacted with one another.  While we had met several times in preparation for the trip, and communicated via email countless other times, I had a little bit of lingering doubt as to how well we would work with one another in an environment that would be unfamiliar for all of us.

From the very beginning of the trip our team was under stress.  We ended up leaving one of our members behind (our translator and driver) on the trip down because his ticket had been rebooked onto another flight.  We had precious little time to make our connections both in New York and in Miami.  And despite the fact that nothing went the way we planned it that first Saturday, I didn't feel like any of us skipped a beat.  Sure we were frustrated and rushed, but everyone seemed able to handle the stress.  In fact, I wonder if it served to bring us together right from the start.

In a group of five people, it would be very easy for one person to make life difficult for everyone else, but we had no such concerns at all.  We worked through the normal issues of travel, including a few days at the end of the trip when most of us were feeling a little under the weather.  We worked through a couple of times when we had some disagreements about how to deal with complicated situations, and were able to do so respectfully and thoughtfully.  At every turn I felt like we were working together to accomplish a task much larger than what any of us could have done on our own - which is my definition of what a good team does.

Just before we left Villa Esperanza I had a conversation with one of the guys who worked on the grounds around the facility.  He remarked that our team had been different from other teams that had stayed there in the past.  He said that some of the teams had very little interaction with the staff at all, but that ours had been different - we had treated them as equals and as friends, rather than just as workers.  I thought that said a lot about the character and quality of our team, and reminded me of just how privileged I was to spend those 11 days with such a great group of people.

I think I'll have one more blog in me about the time in Nicaragua, so I hope you'll join me later this week for that final installment.

Hope - Nicaragua Reflections (Part 3)

Thanks to those of you who are following along with my Nicaragua reflections.  I hope you'll continue to read along and comment when you feel you have something to contribute, because I certainly would love to hear your feedback.

Yesterday I shared some of my burden for what I saw in Nicaragua.  Today I'd like to share about two bright spots on our trip - two organizations that have different aims, but share a common name.  When we scouted out our trip to Nicaragua, we had already committed to helping out one organization called Nica HOPE.  When we starting investigating places to stay, we were referred to a place called Villa Esperanza (which in Spanish means "village of hope"). 

On our first Monday we met with Deanna, the founder and director of Nica HOPE.  It was Deanna who took us to La Chureca and began the process of making connections between us and the school where we spent most of our week serving.  Nica HOPE is an organization that is making a huge difference in the lives of the children in and around the dump community.  They provide school feeding programs at the two schools where most of the kids from the dump attend; they offer backpacks, uniforms and other school materials as an incentive to keep kids in the schools; they provide after-school programs where the children are taught other skills that will be useful as they seek to find work outside of the dump; and most importantly, they provide a ray of hope for these children - the chance to break the cycle of poverty.

We were privileged to meet not only Deanna, but several others who work at Nica HOPE, both Americans who have been serving there and Nicaraguans who are now being employed by the organization.  The spirit of cooperation and passion for what they were doing was very evident from the start.  Deanna was getting ready to take an extended sabbatical, but it was clear from our brief day with her that others were in place who would be able to carry on the work while she is gone. 

We were introduced to the director of the school, and began our preparations to serve there for the week.  I think often on missions trips we tend to measure our effectiveness based on the size of the projects we pulled off.  In that sense we didn't succeed.  We cleaned and painted two bathrooms.  Big deal, right?  There is not a church on the school property, or a medical clinic or even some new rooms for the school.  But for me, all the sweat that went into the project paid off when on Friday, as we were finishing up I met a young woman looking into the girls' bathroom that we had just finished painting.  In my best halting Spanish I asked her what she thought of how the bathroom looked.  She told me that she had been a student here as a little girl, that she remembered what they looked like, and that it was like they had been given new bathrooms.  I could see a sliver of hope in her eyes. 

Each night when we finished our work with Nica HOPE we returned (after a brief stop at Cafe Latina for an iced latte) to Villa Esperanza.  Villa Esperanza is a mission of Forward Edge International, and is doing a great job reaching out to girls who are caught in the dump cycle of poverty, and are often at risk for sexual exploitation as I described yesterday.  The Villa currently houses 16 girls (with plans to add 8 more) who have come out of the dump with the permission of their parent or guardian.  Eight girls live in a house with one house mother.  These girls are receiving an education, are learning what it's like to live with responsibilities for themselves and others, and are getting a chance to live a new kind of life.

The staff at Villa were exceptionally hospitable from the moment we arrived.  From our cook, to the directors, to the crew working on the grounds, we were never without a friendly smile or another opportunity to practice our Spanish.  But really the jewels of the Villa were the girls that are being served.  Many of them have stories that we could not even begin to imagine, and some of them have deep hurts that have not gone away.  But, once again, I think the eyes tell the story.  There is hope shining out from them, the possibility of a future that is different from their past. 

This hope, this possibility of a future, this opportunity to know a different tomorrow - this is the work of the kingdom of God.  I, for one, am glad to have had the experience of seeing hope in action.  It truly is a beautiful, holy thing.

A Picture and a Thousand Words - Reflections on Nicaragua (Part 2)

Few events in my life have left me with what I felt were lasting images, the kinds of sights that seem to be indelibly marked into my thinking.  On a steamy Monday morning in August we drove in two vehicles into the depths of hell on earth.  We drove through the smoke that rises from the trash burning in La Chureca, past a horse that was on the verge of death while the small, black buzzards eagerly circled its body and began picking at its flesh and past the loads of fresh trash coming into this wasteland.

We stopped outside a house on the edge of the dump.  Of course, "house" here is a very loose description, as it did not at all resemble the sort of house that you and I would want to inhabit.  Metal scraps had been fitted together and sectioned off into rooms.  There were some cooking implements in the kitchen area, but they were covered with flies.  The house was fenced in with barbed wire around the top, and strung throughout the small yard area as well. 

There we met eight year old Brian, who was on his own.  He was supposed to be in school, but had decided not to go for the day.  I tried as hard as I could to imagine leaving my son (who's 7) alone by himself for the day under the best of circumstances, but I couldn't bring myself to see how I would do that.  We played marbles, and worked in snippets of conversation in Spanish while I tried to understand what I was seeing.  The idea of an 8 year old at home alone for the day doesn't fit my context.  But, then again, neither did anything else about this place.  The country foreign in language and culture, but it seemed even more alien than that.

On Thursday we went to visit another small community near the dump, called La Playa.  We were invited there by one of the men we met at the small elementary school we were working at.  We saw where he lived, which was not much more than a small shack with a few beds, and a place to cook.  He pointed with pride to his light bulb - a sign of wealth in his community.  La Playa (which in Spanish means "the beach"), is set right up on the shores of Lake Managua.  As we walked to the water, I was overwhelmed with the thought that this should be such a picturesque spot - a tourist haven where people would come to view the spectacular lake, surrounded by mountains and trees.  Instead we saw a lake filled with pollution, littered with trash all along its banks.

How different are Luis and I, really?  We're both men with a family.  We both work to make a living.  We both have hopes and dreams and expectations for our lives.  But when it comes to our living conditions, there couldn't be a more dramatic difference.  I'll go to sleep tonight in a comfortable bed.  I'm sure I'll eat a good meal tonight, and if I'm honest, I'll probably eat more than I need to for sustenance.  If I want to, I'll wake up tomorrow and forget about Luis.  There's a part of me that wishes I could. 

I wrote in my journal that what I saw would be hard to explain to someone used to living like I do even with "the power of a picture and another thousand words."  I could preach to you and tell you that you have no idea of how blessed and fortunate we truly are.  I could tell you that while you spend $2 a day on your coffee, much of the world LIVES on that amount.  I could litter the page with hundreds and thousands of descriptive words by whose power I could hope to persuade you that you have some kind of responsibility to Brian and others because of our common humanity.  I could share with you the stories that we heard of young girls who, in hopes of a better life, are given over to older men who promise to take care of them, but in a few short months end up back in their homes, pregnant and unwanted.  But in the end, I guess that none of those would adequately move you.

At some point in your life, I hope that you will take a trip like the one I did.  I hope that you will stand in a place where you feel the crushing burden of human poverty and brokenness.  This I hope not because I wish a guilt trip upon you, or because I hope to torture you somehow with thoughts of your own greed and desire for more, but because I hope that in that place you might feel something of the weight that I believe breaks the heart of God when he looks at our world.

Brian is 8, my son is 7.  I know one of them made it to school today, and one of them is pretty sure to have every opportunity in life to realize his dreams.  The other, I'm not so sure about.  And that bothers me.  Though I'm not usually a fan of being bothered, the truth is, I hope it never stops.

Tomorrow, we'll regroup and touch on two of the groups we met that were bothered by this too, and are doing something to address the great needs in La Chureca.

The Power of the Unfamiliar - Reflections on Nicaragua (Part 1)

Every time I start out in a new blog post, a part of me wishes that we could just have this conversation in person.  So can we imagine together for a minute or two?

I really want to share with you some reflections from my recent journey to Nicaragua and back, so imagine we've just pulled up a chair alongside one another.  Since we're traveling to Nicaragua for the next few days, there's a warm breeze that wraps its way around you even as your cup of coffee slowly cools in your hands.  On the breeze you catch the scent of unfamiliar fruits and flowers that invite you to investigate their source, and inspire you to consider the wild diversity of God's good creation.  Perhaps you just heard, as I did, the sound of a mango the size of a coconut just land on the metal roof with a thunderous boom.

Twice in my life I've traveled overseas.  Once about 13 years ago to Eastern Europe and the country of Slovakia.  Then in August I traveled to Nicaragua for 11 days of learning, working and growing in my understanding of what it's like to live in a truly impoverished country.  I left behind my wife, two children, my dog, my church, my car, and even my Blackberry.  Okay, that last part's not totally true since I had the Blackberry with me, but never turned it on.  Honest, I didn't. 

Leaving behind the familiar for the unknown is particularly difficult for me, because I'm a creature of habit and comfort.  I tend to gravitate towards situations and people where I know I already have a niche, and where I know I have something to offer.  But from the beginning of this trip none of that would be true.  Our original team of 7 had dwindled to five by the time we arrived in Boston for our flight, and by the time we left Boston we had lost another team member who, due to some complications with our flights would have to follow us the next day.  One of those five team members is a good friend, but the other four were virtual strangers.

Not only would my companions be unfamiliar, but, of course, I was going to a place I'd never been, to speak a language which I'd learned in high school, but had mostly forgotten in the 16 years since I'd said my last "Adios" to senior year.  That first travel day, with all of its chaos, set the tone for the trip in my heart and mind.  Being in an unfamiliar location, with unfamiliar people, unfamiliar customs and an only vaguely familiar means of communicating would mean that I was completely out of my element.

The morning after we arrived in Nicaragua, I wrote this in my journal:  "From the moment they told us a bomb scare had closed part of La Guardia and canceled our first flight of the day there was a chain reaction of events set in motion where I felt very clearly that many things, maybe everything, was out of my control...even in my places of comfort and ease I would do well to remember that I am not the soul (or sole) source for my life."

I took a very simple step of faith; a hesitating, awkward step out into the unknown, and found God was waiting for me there.  In the midst of all that was unfamiliar, I was reminded of just how faithful and good God has been to me, and how he is the ultimate source for my life.  When I have everything that I know, and when I know everything that I have, I find it very easy to begin to trust in my own ability to control situations and order my life.  Unconsciously, of course, I start to think of myself as the master of my own life.  Eleven days in Nicaragua were an opportunity for God to remind me that he is the one ordering my life, and that as he orders my life, he provides all that I need to accomplish his purpose in me. 

Of all the unfamiliar sights to see, the most unfamiliar was a community of people who literally live on the outskirts of a city dump.  Tomorrow I'll post some thoughts on what we saw in La Chureca and La Playa, so come back then and we'll talk some more.