And The Lame Shall Walk...

Nearly two years ago I began working with files for all the patients in our Nicaraguan communities that needed special care. The needs range anywhere from medicines to glasses to surgery to ongoing care.

One boy especially caught my eye. His name is Joiner, and he was five years old. He was born with a cleft palate and club feet. At the time, the request was to buy Joiner knee pads as crawling on his knees was his only way to move around. He had extremely thick callouses on both of his knees and they were causing him discomfort. Knee pads. That is all that was asked for.

Joiner's picture has been sitting on my desk since I first learned about him, and he has continuously haunted me. In one of my first trips to Nicaragua I met a little boy who had had his club feet surgically corrected and he was running and playing with his friends. Why couldn't Joiner have the same fate?

The quest soon began to find Joiner a sponsor. Shortly after I joined staff I met a man who had sponsored yet another little boy to have his club feet corrected. He talked about what an honor it had been to help the boy and to let him know if there was ever another similar case. Bingo!

I began contacting the man, explaining Joiner's situation and presenting the opportunity to help. Each attempt went more or less unanswered. This past January I was speaking to a community coordinator about a potential water project in their community, and wouldn't you know... Joiner's dad was pushing him on a bicycle through the community. I soon learned that another NGO had corrected Joiner's cleft palate a few months before and he was doing well. Joiner sat patiently as I took his picture. He was extremely shy and not used to having much interaction.

I soon returned to the States and sent the potential donor Joiner's photo and gave him an update on Joiner's status. Still no response. It wasn't until about a month and a half later on a Friday afternoon after a really hard week that I received the call.

Man: "Does Joiner still need a sponsor?"
Me: "Yes...?"
Man: "I will have the check in today's mail."
Me: sobbing.

I immediately began emailing our doctors and director in Nicaragua to let them know to get the ball rolling on Joiner's surgery. In my mind, a wand would be flicked through the air, fairy dust would scatter, and Joiner would be walking. Not the case.

Two weeks later, Joiner was taken to a doctor who insisted that at the age of seven, Joiner was too old for the surgery and he needed his legs amputated. No no no! I would not take that for an answer.

After a few trips to and from Nicaragua, carrying precious x-rays, we found a hospital nearby that would donate the surgery and Joiner's stay. Still not the answer I was looking for. No way was I going to bring a boy and his mom, who had barely ever left their extremely remote community to the US for a long period of time. I don't know which would be more traumatizing- the surgery or the experience of coming to the US.

After long stints of my impatience, we FINALLY found a doctor to do the surgery in Nicaragua. Two in fact. We chose a doctor at the Nicaraguan medical school.

Two weeks from today Joiner's legs and feet were casted to stretch his legs and begin straightening them. Last Wednesday he received his second set of casts which straightened and stretched his legs even farther. Today he got his last set of casts. Next week he will (hopefully) be ready for surgery on his feet. After that, surgery on his knees. Then he will have leg braces and tremendous amounts of therapy until he is able to walk. The entire process is expected to take eight months.

I had the great honor last week to be staying in the same city as Joiner with my group. We met and hung out with Joiner each day during our stay, possibly Joiner's only visitors during his stay. He got coloring books and other goodies, visited a coffee shop and restaurant (a first!), and took pictures as he explored the city square. We instilled in him that he is capable of doing all things through Christ and he has many people praying for him. Overall, we loved and spoiled him as much as we could.

Today I had the honor of sharing pictures of Joiner's adventures with his sponsor who immediately sent me an email. He essentially explained that he has been having a bad week, getting caught up in small details and inconveniences of life and hearing about Joiner had put everything into perspective. It "put a smile in his heart".

It is hard for me to comprehend all that God is doing in this little boy's life. I read about Jesus telling the lame to pick up their mat and walk, but it seems like that was something of the past. In truth, it is happening right now... right before my eyes. Christ is still performing miracles, and it is so exciting!

I have a picture of Joiner and me on my desk now. He does not leave my mind. I often times think about how he has never been to school and how he has no friends. His mother used to hide him in the kitchen to keep people from seeing that she had a son with deformities. Our staff didn't even know about Joiner for quite some time. That is no more.

Joiner's eyes lit up when I asked if he wanted to go to school. He told me he wanted to become a teacher. My prayer is that he will never lose that passion. He gets a second chance at life- a life full of friends and school and employment and anything else put before him.

The lame will walk... and do great thing.

Joiner and his mom were a bit nervous and shy the first day.

Joiner and his mom enjoying a coffee shop for the first time.

When asked what he wanted his picture with, Joiner wanted the lion.

The photo reminder I look at everyday in my office :)

Joiner was amazed by this pool of water because his community does not have water.

We were lemonade buddies. :)

Joiner's very first meal in a restaurant. 

The Real Hasta Pronto!

There is a church I work with that sponsors a specific community. The congregation is all very enthusiastic about their partnership and goes to Nicaragua three or four times each year. I have the great joy of accompanying them each trip and have gotten to know some of the community members quite well. 

As a whole, people in Nicaragua are skeptical when people tell them they want to help. Time-and-time again people have said this with no or very little followthrough. 

There is a man in the church's partner community, Los Pinos, named Victorino. Victorino is probably in his 60s and has seen a lot of changes in his life. He has seen many groups come to his community saying they want to partner, and he has seen them never come back. Naturally, on the church's first group, he was skeptical and did not believe them when they said "hasta pronto!" or "see you soon!". 

Victorino in front of his house.

The second group that traveled to Los Pinos was welcomed in Nicaraguan fashion with songs and greetings from several of the community members. As we were standing in the community center, watching the kids sing their hearts out, I looked up and saw Victorino walk through the back door. I watched as his eyes scanned the line of us gringos to see if he knew anyone. There were two returning church members on the trip as well as myself. Victorino and I locked eyes and he got the biggest smile of relief on his face; he knew "hasta pronto" was for real. I nearly cried, which would not have been unlike me in Nicaragua. I was completely overwhelmed by the sense of Victorino's satisfaction and excitement. This was enough to make the trip for me.

I could go on and on about Victorino, but those stories are yet to come. Until then... hasta pronto!

You Cannot Plan Moments Like These

I have just returned home from a two week trip to Nicaragua. One week was in the familiar area of San Ramon, and the other was in the unfamiliar area of La Paz Centro. There were many notable moments from these two weeks, which I will hopefully take the time to share. 

Right now, there's one moment that sticks out the most to me. The group I was with was working on a housing project outside La Paz Centro, which is the network that I am the least familiar with. This community, La Palma, has not had many guests from the US and the workers were completely skeptical and cautious around us. While I may be reserved and quiet in the States, that is nowhere near who I am in Nicaragua; I am much more free. I began making jokes with the workers, making sure they and the group members knew about each other. After all, that is why we were there. 

One of the workers was Alberto, who I quickly grew to love. He has a calm spirit with a deep desire to enjoy life and the people he is around. Alberto's wife came with three little girls to bring him lunch the first day. I introduced myself to his wife and the girls, who ended up being their nieces. Like everyone else, the girls were really shy and had no desire to answer my unending questions about their name, age, and anything else I knew how to ask in Spanish. 

I have learned, when all else fails, pull out your camera. I began taking pictures and videos of the girls and showing them what I was doing. I can still hear the giggles the girls let out as they watched themselves scroll across my phone screen. 

As you can see, Alberto and his wife were just as happy to join in on the fun. They sat timidly behind the girls, not wanting me to know they wanted in the pictures too. If that's not sweet enough, the dog decided to join in. ;)

The one on the left is five-years-old, and the twins are three-years-old. The twins were unable to figure out how to hold up three fingers, so they signed all kinds of numbers when I asked them how old they were.

As with most kids in Nicaragua, I eventually attempt to take a selfie with them. When I squatted next to the girls to position myself for a photo, the girls would not sit still. They kept throwing their arms around, clapping, pointing at the screen, attempting to show me how old they were, and doing anything else they could imagine. It took me a minute, but it finally dawned on me that they had never seen themselves move first-hand. They have no mirrors and no pictures of themselves.

I could not resist capturing this moment, so I continued holding my phone up, acting like I was taking photos when I was really taking a video.

They are too precious.

The day after this, the group went to a neighboring school in La Sabaneta to do a project with the kids. The group had a portable printer, and they took each kids picture, glued it to a piece of paper, and then let the kids decorate the "frame". When we showed up to the school, it did not take long to have three little girls running up wanting a hug. Yep. The girls from the day before. 

I wish I could have paused time during the school event. As I was standing there, close to my new friends, I was watching the kids react to seeing their photo. It took some convincing to get some of the kids to realize that it was actually them in the photo. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the twins grab her paper and give herself a kiss on her photo. 

You cannot plan moments like these. 

Day Savers

We are getting ready to finish a housing project in rural Nicaragua. Twenty-five more families will soon be moving from mud and stick "homes" to stable cement block homes- homes that will be the answer to decades of prayers. It truly is amazing.

I had the great honor of having four groups to Nicaragua this summer, helping work on the homes. Each of the 25 families that will be receiving a home must send a representative to work on the project at least two days per week. However, with each project there are always a handful of guys that come work on the homes every day.

Spending four weeks at the project, I came to know many of the workers pretty well. Some have become good friends that I have stayed in contact after my return to the States. Technology makes this so easy!

Not only did I build relationships with the workers, I had the great joy of getting to know the kids that live near the project. Eight-year-old Eduardo (in blue) and six-year-old Maria (in yellow) came to see me each day after school. We played ring-around-the-rosie and London bridge is falling down a few times. They loved taking pictures and looking through endless amounts of photos on my phone. They absolutely have stolen my heart.

My last day at the project on my final trip of the summer, Eduardo, Maria, and their cousin (in the center) literally tackled me and gave me a huge, forever-long bear hug. I cannot share how much this overwhelmed me with indescribable emotion. Their faces have now taken over the background of my laptop and my work computer, allowing me to see them everyday. I can be having a stressful day where I just want to crawl in a hole, but as soon as I look at their faces, my heart is overcome with the deep love I have developed for these cuties. I have no doubt that they can save any bad day from here to eternity.

"No problem. It's my job."

I had the great honor of escorting two Nicaraguan friends/co-workers around the past few days. They were here for our fall board meeting and Gracias Luncheon. Nelson, our Nicaraguan National Director,  has been to the US five times before, but Yader, one of our supervisors, has never been to the States. It was so fun taking them around to different church visits/presentations, restaurants, and tourist sites. Yader was especially fun because he was so overwhelmingly excited by the North American culture that he giggled like a little school girl. :) Keep in mind- this is a grown man with grandchildren laughing hysterically at the excitement of things that I take for granted every single day.

Each of my trips to Nicaragua, Nelson and Yader have treated me like royalty and it was only fair for them to be treated the same during their stay here. I even reluctantly followed their wishes of feeding them McDonald's on two different occasions. "Something fast that serves chicken" is what Nelson always said. After several options, McDonald's it was.

The best part of my time with them was a meeting I had with Yader regarding our student sponsorship program. In the past, there has not been enough man-power to put much time into this program and many sponsors have been expressing their complaints about lack of information about their student and lack of communication between the office and the donors. It is a top priority of mine to fix this, so I was discussing the concerns with Yader. He presented several different ideas of ways he could send more information about each student and create a stronger connection between the students and their sponsor. Each suggestion seemed like a lot of work to me and I expressed my concern of taking more of his time as he is already overwhelmed. His response- "No problem. It's my job."

His response made me speechless. How many times have I complained about having to do overtime or follow requests to add more to my workload? It was a humbling answer to receive from someone so thankful to simply have a job. The amazing thing is that I have received the same answer from multiple Nicaraguan co-workers. They work overwhelming hours in some of the roughest terrain in the world and yet they do everything they are asked (plus some!) because it is their job.

Days like today when I am completely exhausted from the last few day's non-stop chaos, I am reminded of Yader's words. When I want to slack off and rest or even consider taking some time off, I'm reminded that my friends and co-workers are sucking it up to continue our mission. I am so thankful for my Nicaraguan counterparts that push me each and every day to stretch farther than I could ever imagine in my commitment to help the poorest people in Nicaragua.

Ok With Daunting

It dawned on me today that the entire purpose of me starting this blog was to tell about all the amazing things that have taken place. Fail!

I have put an unbelievable amount of miles on my car these last couple weeks, great things have happened, and I have shared none of it.

I have been apart of a presentation put on by a group that traveled to Nicaragua this summer which was great. I have been apart of church visits that could develop into great church partners with Rainbow Network. I have toured the Personal Energy Transportation warehouse and eaten dinner with Mel and Barbara West, the founders of PET and many other missions organizations, which is always a delight.

All of these were great, but there were two recent things that really stick out to me.

First, I helped man the Rainbow Network booth at the Festival of Sharing. FOS was started by Mel and Barbara (of course!) decades ago. Missions groups from all over Missouri come together at the MO State Fairgrounds with two main purposes- to raise awareness and to better equip the organizations to serve. It has been turned into a youth weekend and at any given point throughout the day you will see several youth groups packaging up tons (literally tons) of rice and beans to send to food pantries through the state. There are livestock outside and quilts inside that are auctioned off to support the missions organizations financially. Several other states have mimicked this event in their own state. The amazing thing about this weekend is that while it is administered by the United Methodist Church, it welcomes all denominations. Over 30 different denominations came together with one purpose- to fight hunger. The small details of each denominations' beliefs do not matter when you are dealing with hungry stomachs. I once heard that hungry stomachs have no ears and I could not agree more.

The second big event was having the honor to speak at my home church for Laity Sunday. While I have done over 30 presentations for Rainbow Network, I have never done anything quite like this. Speaking about an organization- especially one you are passionate about- is easy. Talking about yourself- especially for me- not so much. I was asked to speak about what makes me so passionate about missions. While I made a few different points, the one that means the most is that this is what I have been called to. There is nothing more satisfying than serving the Lord through the poor. Knowing that my life is dedicated to a purpose and not a paycheck is extremely fulfilling. Each decision that I make at work and each conversation that I have with anyone no matter where I am could potentially lead to another mouth being fed, another sturdy home being built, another diploma being earned, another illness being treated, another job being developed. The list goes on and on. The more I think about it, the more daunting it seems. I could not ask for anything better.

Praying for Miracles

I recently read an article where the writer stressed the idea of praying for miracles. He brought up the point that if we truly believe God can perform miracles, then why aren't we praying for miracles? "What you believe shapes how you pray. And what you pray shapes you."

This same writer challenged his own thoughts and changed his frustration from a nearby screaming baby to a half-hearted, selfish prayer for the baby to stop crying so that he no longer had to listen to it. The crying continued. He then got serious and said a sincere prayer for God to provide comfort for the baby. He even went as far as praying that the baby would smile. Low and behold, the baby stopped crying and after a couple seconds even started laughing.

This got me thinking. How many times do I mumble half-hearted prayers to God for immediate relief to a small problem? God, please make my head stop hurting. God, please give me the strength to get through this hard time. God, please help me find sponsors for some of the unsponsored students. If I take the writer's stance about praying what we believe, then I have very little faith in what God can do.

If I pray what I claim to believe, my prayers should be more like God, help me find sponsors for the remaining 103 unsponsored students. Not only them, but let me have people on the waiting list for next year's new students. God, please use this hard time to teach me what's needed to do something really great.

The information in the article presented a challenge not only to the writer, but to me as well. Consider this my vow to narrow my focus and be more specific in my prayers, each asking for miracles. If I don't, how can I say I believe in an Almighty God that can do incomprehensible things?