I’m typing this from the familiarity of my home. After a long (but no so long compared to past travel horror stories…) travel day, we finally touched down in good ol’ Tally. There is something so comforting about arriving back at home. Especially when you’re going to be taking some time to process the week you’ve just experienced. I’m looking forward to taking some time tomorrow and curling up on my couch under a blanket (It’s fall time, blanket weather!! Quite a contrast from Nica weather) with a cup of coffee and my journal and just verbally “throwing up” all over the page. Sorry for the unpleasant comparison, but it’s the best I could come up with.

So now comes the fun part about a mission trip. Assimilating back into “normal life” and trying to figure out how to take all the things I learned/saw/experienced/felt and pull it all into that life. What’s going to change? How will my attitude be different? Will it be different? People always comment that it must be so hard to adjust to the culture of a new country. True, but I find it even harder to adjust back to U.S. culture after such a week.

There’s also the hard part of answering the question: “So how was Nicaragua?” Some of those people will want to sit down and hear the stories and look through the hundreds of pictures. Others will simply want a short, 15 second or less answer. It’s hard to know how to respond. “It was really good” just doesn’t seem to sum it up.

I’ll tackle all that stuff tomorrow after a good night’s sleep. For now I’ll try to start thinking in English again (at the Atlanta airport today, I instinctively responded, “Gracias!” when the waitress brought my lunch), and be extremely thankful for the home that Drew and I share. I am blessed.

G’nite… I’m off to say hello to my bed.

Although there is always a bit of sadness about leaving at the end of a trip, I always have a big sense of relief, especially on trips like this. I’m quite excited to be heading home, back to familiarity and comfort. I love mission trips, but being in a different culture is exhausting. My brain has constantly been on the move this week, taking in all the Spanish and trying desperately to translate it. I don’t know if any of you have ever had the picture of your brain as a little man looking through a card catalog for info, but my little man has been working overtime. I can see him throwing the cards in the air in frustration!

Along with trying to comprehend all of the Spanish I possibly can, I’ve been overwhelmed by different sights and smells. It seems that Nicaraguans burn everything, and some of us have been left wondering if people are smoking something. There’s always something interesting to look at outside our bus windows: women carrying baskets on their heads, busy shops, poor homes, near collisions of taxis with our bus… trying to take it all in can leave you on overload. Today, we spent a bit of time in downtown Leon, and as well as trying to take everything in myself, I noticed several people taking me in. An old gentlemen was staring me down as we walked past. I smiled (weakly) but he continued to stare at me, or almost through me. It’s so awkward.

Although I’ve been tired and sometimes overwhelmed, I have been very blessed the past couple days. As Drew mentioned in our last blog, we had our “pastor appreciation day” yesterday. I was so excited as I sat in the hotel and realized that I was doing mission work with my husband. It’s been great just being here together, but it was especially great to be involved in one specific ministry together.

Drew, Pastor Carlos Castillo and I after the Pastor Appreciation Meeting

It was also a lot of fun to interact with the pastors. I was extremely proud of Drew and how well he communicated in Spanish. He had a conversation with one pastor for about 30 minutes without any translator. I contributed a bit, but I’ve found that I hear it better than I speak it. I understood the whole conversation, but had a hard time putting any of my thoughts into words. I get flustered and forget everything. So frustrating! And Drew did have them laughing… a lot! Carlos, the pastor that we spent the majority of our time talking to, had recorded a CD, and he was insistent on getting us a copy. Today, he dropped a copy of that CD off at El Ayudante for us. Drew made a copy of my Christmas CD for him. It’s so exciting to make friends in new countries.

Today we’ve been winding down. This morning we had a house dedication for the home that Drew and the construction team has been building. Drew was very proud to show off his work. Although meager and humble, it is much better conditions than her previous home. She was so thankful, and had tears in her eyes as she told us thank you. After that, the VBS team raced back to El Ayudante and made over 100 sandwiches to take to a local school.

The cathedral in downtown Leon, Nicaragua

We went, planning to do our usual VBS schedule, and were told that they didn’t want us to preach the Word. So, we simply gave them food, a few soccer balls and crafts, waved adios and then went on our way. I was just happy I didn’t have to sing “Yo tengo gozo” again.

This afternoon, we had a chance to tour the cathedral in the middle of downtown Leon. They took us up on the roof and we had a great view of the city. As we walked through the interior of the sanctuary, Drew commented how funny it was that a country that has so much poverty had such an extravegant cathedral.

Now I’m going to go let the little man in my brain take a break for awhile.

This has been an interesting mission trip for me, filled with all sorts of conflicting emotions. I haven’t been sleeping well, so I’ve been sort of grumpy, and while many of our team members are sharing hallelujah moments, I’ve been having major moments of discouragement. As someone who has a big passion for missions, it’s been a frustrating time.

I’ve spent the majority of the week working in local schools bringing a little Vacation Bible School to the local kids. Yesterday, my group was taken to a school way out in the middle of nowhere, thrown into a small, stuffy room, and then had about 100 kids dumped in with us while the teachers “vamosed” to somewhere. So here we were, outnumbered 10 to 1, with only two translators to help. As we did our lessons, the kids became restless until they were barely paying attention at all. Some of the looks on their faces said to me, “Who are you and why are you here?” We had no one to help with discipline. As they left the room, they left trash all over the floor from the crafts. (One small girl stayed behind to help me clean up. That was an encouragement.) Through all this frustrations, I’ve been dealing with thoughts such as, “Are short term missions really effective? What can we possibly accomplish with these kids in an hour and a half? Is it really having an impact? Why am I here?” Again, for a passionate, wannabe missionary, these are tough emotions to deal with.

After this tough morning, though, God gave me a blessing. The VBS team was in the same “village” as the medical team. We walked by their building and saw the long line of people waiting for treatment. One of the nurses on our team suggested we offer them some water, as they had been standing for hours in the heat. So, I, along with two other team members, walked by the crowd and offered small cups of cold water. I thought of when Jesus says that when you offer even just a cup of cold water, you have blessed others.

Last night, I shared my frustrations from the day with the group and was thanked by several for sharing. And this morning, my team had a much better experience with the kids we interacted with. I felt like we connected more (I even got to kick a soccer ball around with some of them… now there’s real ministry!) and even connected with the teachers. It was the encouragement that I needed that short term mission trips can indeed be productive.

I feel like a human wishbone...

This afternoon, we got to have a pinata party! We went to another local school, and brought a Winnie the Pooh pinata. We beat Pooh to death, did some crafts, and just had some fun. The construction crew had the afternoon off and were given the choice of coming to the party. My sweet husband decided to come along and get a glimpse into my week. At the end, as the kids were leaving, one little boy kissed all the ladies on the cheek as he said goodbye. He kissed me and Drew told him (in Spanish), “Be careful. That’s my wife!” The boy turned, raised his eyebrows, and put up his fists as if to fight. So Drew took him on! At one point, Drew grabbed his bag of goodies from the pinata. So the boy shrugged, took my hand and started to pull me away. Drew told me, “I guess you’re only worth $4 worth of pinata stuff!” We took some fun pictures with him. He was a good sport and shook Drew’s hand in the end, I suppose admitting defeat. He was kind of cute though…