So It All Began. . .

This morning I am sitting in Coastal Guatemala, at a restaurant about 100 yards from an inlet that flows out into the Pacific Ocean, a far cry from my roots in the Mid-west.  And it feels so normal! How my world-view has changed in the last twelve years.  Since I have just completed my third year living here in Guatemala, it seems a good time to reflect on how I got here.

I remember my first trip to Latin America more than twelve years ago. It was all so strange, almost as if I had landed on another planet.  I looked with wonder, laced with a touch of fear, at everything I encountered upon leaving the airport.   Arriving late at night in Managua, we we were greeted by two refurbished school buses, brightly painted and thoroughly decorated, inside and out. Men were frantically loading our baggage on top and tying it down.   "How lovely and quaint this country must  be."

On that first trip God quickly destroyed any sense of romance I might have harbored about the mission field. The next morning taught me how wrong I was.  While we had spent the night comfortably in the somewhat luxurious  mission house, those around us had spent the night sleeping in squallier in little more than tar paper shacks.   The stark contrast was my first lesson in the realities on life in Latin America.

There were about sixty of us on a medical/dental team from Nebraska
heading up to San Francisco in northern Nicaragua.  The local missionaries told us that we were the first team they were taking into this area, which had previously been held by the Sandanistas during the war.  They assured us that they  had made arrangements with the local authorities and had scouted out the route we would take, a long trek we should be able to make in about 8 hours.

We loaded up the buses from the night before and headed out, following the Pan-American highway.  We made pretty good time until we turned off onto a dirt road.  Almost instantly, we were traveling through thick clouds of dust, so thick that one of the dentists on the team broke out a box of surgical masks for us to wear, hoping to keep us from inhaling the fine powder into our lungs.  Then the "fun" began. A number of times we climbed hills so steep we prayed our way up, hoping the ancient bus we were in would make it up without us needing to get out and walk, or, worse yet, blowing the engine.

We drove through creeks so deep yet so narrow that we almost got hung up when the front bumper would be touching one bank and the rear bumper the other.  I was getting more nervous, and praying more fervently by the mile.  What would happen if we broke down, stranding us out here in the middle of nowhere?

Then it happened.  A tire on the other bus blew out!  No problem—just put on the spare. Except. . .my second lesson of life in Latin America. . . There was no spare!  These are a luxury few have in poverty-stricken countries.  Small things we take for granted in the
US are beyond the reach of most living in the majority of the world. Remember now, we were in the middle of no where.  Most of us spoke no Spanish, many needed a "baño break" and all of us were very hot and covered with a thick coat of dust.

In God's providence, one of the local missionaries was following us in his jeep, since he could not stay with us in the village the entire week.  He would take the flat back to the nearest tire repair and have it fixed.  So we waited.

And here, on the side of the road in the "Nowhere, Nicaragua," I experienced clearly my first God-incident on the mission field.  In the house in front of which we had broken down was a very sick child with a high fever.  It "just so happened" that we were a well equipped medical team, with two doctors who were only too happy to make a house-call. They were able to examine and prescribe treatment for the child, and we were able to give the family the medication they needed from the supplies we were carrying.  Lesson number three--look through the circumstances, no matter how inconvenient, to see where God might be at work, and how you can join in.

My fourth and final lesson of the day was perhaps the most profound. The poor, no matter how little they have, will often share what they do have with others in need.  This family, upon hearing many in the group were sorely in need of a bathroom, generously offered the use of their outhouse to all SIXTY of us. We must have been quite a sight to these Nicaraguans as we emerged from the buses!  Not only were we the first North Americans these folks had probably ever seen,  we were a particularly motely crew.

Try to imagine my face covered by a thick layer of black powder, with
two white dots for eyes, where my glasses had caught most of the dust! Now add a circle of white around my nose and mouth, which had been protected by the surgical mask.  Now multiply this by at least forty, and I have to laugh.   What if these people would forever think this is the natural pigmentation of the Caucasians in the US?

They didn't flinch a bit however as about half the group took them up
on their offer to use their toilet facilities, the rest of us opting
to squat wherever we could find a bit of privacy.  Could you imagine
someone breaking down in front of your house, and inviting them in to use the bathroom?  Yep, Latin America is a whole different world. .
.one which I fell in love with, on the side of the road, in "Nowhere,
Nicaragua."

You, see, for many years, I had a picture in my office at the church
of the mile marker where we had the flat.  This photo now sits on the
mantel of my home here in Guatemala.   I took this picture knowing
this was a "holy place" in my journey, for in this spot, before I had
ministered to a single person, I felt God's first tug on my heart for
the people of Latin American.  I knew, in this moment, that He had
changed me, and I could never go back to my comfortable existence in Omaha.