Thoughts From Managua

There is a beauty in being content and joyful with what God has provided for you and we definitely learned much about this from our Nicaraguan family this week.  We learned how to be joyful in relationships without having fancy things like TV’s, gadgets, and large clean homes and to keep us entertained.  We learned that joyfulness is possible without hot showers, air conditioning, or fancy medical machines and we all hope that as we return to live life with our family and friends in South Carolina we are able to add more of this joyfulness to our relationships with them.   We learned that God is gracious and constantly gives us reminders of how well He has orchestrated His Big C Church: through the ease of playing games of hopscotch and soccer with our Nicaraguan family; through the ease of expressing love and compassion across language barriers with our expressions and hugs; through the ease of using our minds and hands to clean homes and build new roofs; and through the ease in which we were able to work together, meshing our talents without much hands on practice as being a team before landing in Managua on Sunday.  These pieces of the Big C Church gives us a glimpse of what we hope to experience once we enter His eternal kingdom one day!  We thank our Nicaraguan family much for this.

We also live in a fallen world, where often times our bodies, minds, and spirits are broken.  Sometimes we have been broken for so long that we come to accept our broken-ness as normal- as good, forgetting that God has more in store for us if we just acknowledge our brokenness and push forward.  Everyday, many in our Nicaraguan family would walk into the medical clinic and say they felt good and had no complaints.  When we dug a little deeper, we would find that our brothers and sisters have had upset stomachs and muscular pains for months or years. Their pain and discomfort had become a part of their normal daily life.  Because it was so common, they no longer saw it as painful, and stopped pursuing help to alleviate it.  We had a blast this week being a part in God’s plan to help our family find hope in improving their physical health, taking the time to reassure them that they can live life here in earth in better health.  It also opened our eyes to just how broken we are spiritually. How easy it is for us to conform to the ways of this world, acting and believing like our pridefulness and selfishness is normal; what God intends for us.  We take credit for the works we do as our own, forgetting that God is our breath and life.  As we return to South Carolina, we feel driven to take steps to improve our spiritual health so we can function and do the things God has in store for us. Because if we base our normal good spiritual health like we do our physical health, we are missing out on so much.

-Tina