Sunday, 02 March 2008

• La Vida Campesina Nicaragüense

       Man, God is awesome!  I just got back from Nicaragua where we explored some of the famous sites and lived with new host families for about a week!  Before I jump in, here's some house-keeping stuff: You have to be a Xanga member to post comments, so just send emails to samorse723@yahoo.com if you want to contact me.  Also, that one entry in Spanish is just a translation of the one before it.  I was hoping to translate all the entries but that's pretty time consuming. 

       Alright, so.  We learned some basic Nicaraguan history.  There was this guy named William Walker, a North American, who decided he wanted to rule Nicaragua in the 1800s.  He sort of succeded until Central America booted him out twice.  Then, I believe, Nicaragua set up a Socialist government and wanted to sell the rights for building a canal through Nicaragua to the best business partner, not necesarrily the US.  The US didn't like that, so they sent in the marines and a puppet government.  A young Nicaraguan man named Sandino didn't like that, so he started guerilla warfare against the marines to restore Nicaraguan control.  He was successful for a while until the US helped the Nicaraguan National Guard overthrow Sandino and put Samoza in power.  Samoza was assassinated but his two sons ruled after him.  They were overthrown and the country was once again socialist.  Then the US started supporting a rebel group known as the Contras.  The Sandinistas and Contras waged war until finally a treaty was drawn between them.  Know the country sort of fluctuates between capitalist and socialist governments, but has democratically elected leaders.  It is also the second poorest in Latin America, after Haiti.  Don't quote me on that, but that's the gist of it.  I'll check all my facts in a few days.

       So anyway, as you all know by now I really want to be a missionary out in the sticks somewhere.  Well I lived with a family that was definitely out in the sticks and it was awesome!  You had to ride a truck for a half hour and then a horse for an hour and a half to get there!  While I was there we bathed in the river, harvested and shucked some beans, milked cows and slept in hammocks.  I felt like a little boy the whole time I was there cause it was all just one big adventure!  I mean, it was awesome!  Especially since my family was really easy to understand. 

       We were the first gringos to ever visit their village!  So we were definitely the center of attention, which you all know is perfectly fine with me! 

       We went to a baseball game one day in the village and everyone had really nice uniforms!  They take their baseball seriously here (something the marines brought to the country.) 

       We also ate dinner at about every house we went to, so it got kind of hard to down more food after a while!  They even killed a few of their chickens while I was there and I told my dad "You don't have to kill all your chickens for us since they give you eggs."  He replied, "The chickens we will always have with us, but the Gringos we will only have for a little time."  As funny as that sounds, that's how they treated us; like Kings and Queens!  They really were some of the nicest people I've ever met!

       My family borrowed my camera to take pictures the whole time, so it was kind of nice cause I got a lot of good pictures, but after a while I started restricting use of it because it started taking away from doing other stuff. 

       Two of the girls got proposed to in the week that we were there!

       I got to preach in Spanish.  That was pretty cool, but I had almost no voice that day!  No joke, I had no head ache or sore throat, but my voice sounded like a chipmunk in puberty drinking helium!  I kept going, though.  I preached about using all the opportunities God gives you and talked about Abraham and the Woman with the flow of blood that touched Jesus' cloak.  Luckily my host dad, the pastor of the village, understood me and retold it all to the congregation.  Afterwards I played the guitar and the three gringas sang Indescribable by Chris Tomlin. 

       The next night we had a going away service which most of the village attended.  We were playing some kind of tag for a while, but then it turned into all the kids just chasing me around!  I felt so honored!  All those kids really loved the three girls and I! 

       I had a blast and I know my family will miss me.  I'm going to send them a thank you card and a big stack of pictures as soon as I can.

       Our families were definitely poor out there, but they had food and land.  Most of the houses were wood with tin roofs and dirt floors and an outhouse.  The majority of people had horses and farmed.  A few even sold things like milk or beans in the nearby town and had a TV powered by a solar panel.  (Not quite the Satellite dish next to a bamboo hut like in Thailand!)  They also have school up to sixth grade in the village and higher levels in the city 2 or 3 times a week.  They even had a free government clinic a couple hours down the road. 

        So they were definitely poor, but they get by and they all seemed very happy.  Some of the other students stayed in small towns (almost slums) and that seemed worse to me.  Some of their families were unemployed with a 7x7 foot house and no land to farm. 

       This trip made me think about poverty a little differently.  I sort of felt like there would not be as much need for a medical missionary out in the sticks like I'm been wanting to be.  I feel like the slums somewhere would be in greater need of medical care among many other things, but the slums honestly don't excite me as much as the sticks.  However, my one friends reminded me that not all villages have a free clinic nearby, and my mom told me that even if they do, problems like cleft pallete and infant death still need improvement of treatment. 

       I'm also thinking about maybe living in a poor neighborhood in the States some day so I can help it improve and minister to the people there.  I could find plenty of people in need of medical care and I could even do a month of missions every summer or something like that.  We'll see!  I've still got a while to go before I really have to think about all that and I know God is working out the details as we speak.

       Well, that's most of what's been going on!  Hope to hear from you all soon!  I'll put some pictures up some time.  Good luck to all of you in school and work and remember that God is faithful!  Tell about what's going on in your lives, good or bad.  I'm willing and eager to listen!

      

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