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Connie Inglish on her first trip to Nicaragua
I took my first trip to Chacraseca, Nicaragua in 2011. I used to do youth mission trips and direct a camp for at risk children but I had moved to a new city and not found a meaningful form of service. By nature, I like to plan things, so I worked with Leslie to put together the first all female group. I was interested in going to Chacraseca because my daughter lives in Uganda and I thought I wanted to see a developing Central American country. Also many from our church spoke with passion about their experiences in Chacraseca and it made sense to continue the relationship between the church, Just Hope and the Chacraseca community. All this to say -- I was interested but not very invested. There was no fire in my belly, just an attitude of – oh, I can do this and it will be fun.
Mid-way through the trip, I found that I really cared for this community; for the women and the amazing hope they have to make their community better; for the water project that I experienced first-hand when I spent the night with Candida, a mother, farmer and the main provider for an extended family; for their ability to persist in trying circumstances. I was awed by the way the Just Hope partnership truly does create a shared role in development instead of a one-up, let me help you, aren’t you grateful relationship. I found that I had moved outside of my own concerns and self-centered focus. It felt good to reclaim my role in the family of God. In the book, “It’s a Meaningful Life: It Just Takes Practice”, Bo Lozoff says
“…meaningfulness calls us all, albeit often in a whisper – a ‘still, small voice’ that may be drowned out by the noises of everyday survival. But the whisper keeps calling and calling until it begins to break through in the dead of the night, … or some other time when the worldly noise is silenced just long enough for us to hear what we need to hear. And when that happens, we may find little signs, new friends, unexpected resources, or something else out of the blue that gives us the opportunity to experience life in a deeper and more holy way than we had ever imagined we could.”
The trip to Nicaragua did this for me.
Re-Entry
By Lynne Bradley
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From the United Church of the Valley (Murrieta, Calif.) July 2009 newsletter:
Vestido del reingreso …translation: Re-entry outfit. Denise, a member of our Nicaragua house-building team who kept our group laughing through our recent trip, kept reminding us to be sure we had our re-entry outfits (several T-shirts were purchased to this end). You see, after a week of house-building and music-teaching in this hot and even more humid climate, our working clothes wouldn’t have made us very good seatmates on our return flight. However, as I try to unpack, do laundry and, most of all, reflect on this amazing adventure we were on, I’m realizing that the term “re-entry” is a pretty apt one.
Terri Brown: Nicaragua, Day 2
On the second day of our Nicaragua adventure we were given the task of shopping.
The average Nicaragua family of 4 - mom, dad and 2 children - makes slightly less than one US dollar a day, or 20 Nicaraguan Cordovas. So our task was to go to the market with 20 Cordova and buy enough food to feed our family of 4 for a day. We split up into teams and went out shopping. The markets are not like we think of our markets nice air condition, all food items kept at their required temperature. We were at an outdoor market and everything from shoes and clothes to toys and tools from fruit, meat ,fish and cheese just out in the hot sun.
So we were off to shop for a day’s worth of food for a family of 4 with our 20 Cordovas (US $1).
