Dear Family and Friends,
It’s good to “sit down and talk with you” again tonight. It has been quite a month here in Nicaragua. Many challenges and frustrations, but God’s glory and sovereignty have been something we have witnessed once again. My plan is to write tonight about one way that we watched God respond to us at a time this past week when both Dan and I both felt very weak.
We will write again soon with some exciting news about some things that are happening at NCA and also share something with you that Rebekah wrote about what it was like to leave her home 3 years ago to come to Nicaragua and her impressions of life here now three years later.
The Miracles: God's Strength in Our Weakness
Our reentry back to Nicaragua this time was rough. It began with our luggage not arriving with us which is the first time this has happened. Then, we were not able to track it on the computer because the airline’s system was down. We waited for 2 days before it did come and we were thankful that everything inside was accounted for. Another surprise included the discovery of a few families of cockroaches who were making our kitchen cupboards their home. The kitchen was also infested with ants. We are still dealing with this, as the other night Dan said the kitchen floor looked like it was moving because it was covered with ants. In addition, a couple small appliances were no longer working – it is typical for electric things to not last long here due to the frequency of power outages and surges. Another stress was that Dan was able to get little done at work the first few weeks of August due to problems with the internet at school.
Our car was not working very well either – it would start, we would arrive at our destination, and then when we tried to leave, it would be dead. The weird thing was that if we waited 10 minutes it would sometimes start again. The car was also overheating again. Our American mechanic is no longer working on cars so we had no one to help us with this. Our internet was not working in our home when we arrived back. For 4 weeks, our land lord called the internet service, someone from the school was calling, we were calling, and other Nicaraguans were calling for us and the answer we would receive from the company was “your internet IS working.” Then, the thing that “broke” me was the day I found out that my house helper, Jeaneth, was no longer able to work for us. I lasted only about 3 months without a house helper when we first arrived 3 years ago– there is so much dirt that blows into our home in the dry season and mold that grows on everything during the rainy season. Jeaneth has been with us for 2 ½ years and has become a friend and someone with whom I work well with. She was continually joyful in the midst of her very difficult circumstances. So, I’ve really grieved her absence in our home.
So, this past Monday morning, I laid in bed thinking about all of the things that were going on – primarily the loss of Jeaneth and how impossible it seemed to get the internet fixed. Dan walked into the room and I said, “I am overwhelmed.” He said, “me too”. I got in the shower and Rebekah came into the bathroom a few minutes later and said that a lady was at our door. After finishing my shower and getting dressed, I went to the door to find a Nicaraguan woman and my neighbor standing at my door. My neighbor said that this woman (her name is Mercedes) was looking for a job. We set up a time to talk the next day, and to my amazement, she came with a resume and reference letters. This is really not typical. I called one of her references who is an American family who now lives in the States and they said that Mercedes is someone they would highly recommend. The husband told me that he would trust Mercedes with his car and the wife said that she holds her in highest esteem. This recommendation is very important because the most difficult thing about finding a house helper is finding someone that you can trust. The hours Mercedes said she was available were perfect for our family. She spoke very clear Spanish and was not afraid to correct my Spanish which I appreciated (also not typical of most Nicaraguans). I’ve been praising God this past week for providing for us in a most amazing way – by placing someone on our doorstep and saving us a great deal of time and energy trying to find someone to replace Jeaneth. So, that was the first miracle.
The second miracle happened on the same day. The internet company miraculously showed up at the point where Dan and I had given up hope that the problem would ever be addressed. The workers figured out what the problem was with our internet – which was actually quite complicated. Then, they fixed it. And our internet has never before worked as well as it does now.
An American friend also recommended this amazing Nicaraguan man who is now helping us with our car. He lived in the States for 20 years and worked as a mechanic there. He has been back in Nicaragua now for 11 years, and knows his way around in terms of finding parts, etc. He speaks great English and he lives within walking distance from our house. He too has been an amazing gift from God.
We learn every day how sufficient God is. How He sees us and knows us and knows our limits and our weaknesses. And we recognize how His strength is so clearly seen when we are at our weakest. I sometimes think about how weak Dan and I really are. We are both quite reserved socially; both of average intelligence; it is sometimes easy for us to get overwhelmed; I struggle with anxiety; I'm not very organized; Dan has never liked being the center of attention and our life requires that we speak in front of hundreds of people; and I could go on and on.
I was also thinking the other day about how I got rejected the first time I applied to graduate school because I had gotten two D minuses which significantly impacted my grade point average as a Junior transfer student at Calvin College. I laugh when I think about those two classes because it is further testimony of how God is in the business of using very weak people through whom to display His strength. The subject matter of those two classes was – Spanish.
While we were in the States, several people commented on how my writing includes the sharing of our vulnerabilities. My heart as I write is that you would continually view Dan and I as weak, broken people. I also pray that you would also see how God so amazingly and time after time - rescues us, empowers us, challenges us, and strengthens us with His love and His grace. We pray that you would see a pattern of how we are weak, but He is strong. Our hope too is that you would know and believe and be encouraged that we are not a “special case”. God loves to work through weak and broken people because His glory is so much more obvious through us when we are weak. Our response to life can be to push through on our own to prove our strength (even our spiritual strength) to ourselves or others OR to “give up” and surrender to the One who is a Master at taking what is broken and making it more whole than ever thought possible. I personally live on both sides of that fence from day to day. What I am learning, however, is that the side of surrender is a whole lot more peaceful and actually even a lot more fun.
Thank you once again for reading this update. It is our joy to share this journey with you and we are so thankful and blessed by those who journey with us.
Peace to you,
Dan, Lisa (the writer), Rebekah, and Will