"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.