Over the course of the past year, I had plenty of moments where I never wanted to come back to the US and to my 8-to-5 engineering job. Like when my students did particularly well and were really learning English. When I was sitting with a family eating delicious food and talking and laughing. When I was in the middle of nature in an incredibly beautiful landscape. When 4-year-old Linette threw her arms around my neck, looked me in the eye, and said "Yo te quiero MUCHO!" (I love you a lot) When I was walking around Cedro Galan or Chureca and random people shouted out to say hi to me by name and I never wanted to lose that sense of community.
There were also a few moments where all I wanted was to be back in the US. When I got discouraged by how much I couldn't help in the communities and families we worked with. When I missed my friends and family back home like crazy. When I couldn't stop sweating for days at a time, or when I just really wanted some Thai food.
By the time I left, however, I wasn't really experiencing either of those strong, passing feelings. Instead of any immediate desire to stay or leave, I had a deep, deep sense that it was the right time. I was ready to say goodbye to Nicaragua and head back to the US. I am incredibly, incredibly thankful for that sense of peace and sense that the timing was right. I had an amazing last few days in Nicaragua - between Mother's Day (May 30 in Nicaragua) celebrations in La Chureca, good-bye parties with my English classes, a trip to Tip Top (think KFC with a different name) with a family I'm close with in La Chureca, a goodbye dinner with close friends in Cedro Galan, and solid time with my housemates.
I am enjoying have a bit of down time before starting work, and am getting used to life in the States again. I miss Nicaragua, but am confident that I will be back to visit before too long. The word "home" is starting to have a lot of different meanings for me - as I was leaving Nicaragua, I felt like I was leaving home, and a few hours later, I felt like I was arriving at home in Michigan. When I left that home a week later, I was excited to arrive home to Houston. Cedro Galan, Chiquilistagua, and La Chureca will forever be part of home for me, and part of me will always be there. Even when I'm not physically there, I know the communities and the people I came to love this year will travel with me in my heart and a part of me will be there with them.
I will be forever thankful for the opportunity to spend a year with Manna Project in Nicaragua, and to each and every person who helped make that possible for me - whether through financial support, emotional support, or facilitating my time off of work. It was a blessed year and I know I will be seeing the results of it in my life for years to come.
A bible verse that has been on my heart a lot lately is Ecclesiastes 3:11, which tells us that He has made everything beautiful in its time. As I look back on everything in my life, I see this to be true: I may not have seen the beauty happen in the time I wanted it to, but in His time everything is made beautiful. I have no doubt that God is making beauty out of the difficulties I witnessed in Nicaragua, even when all I could see in the moment was a beautiful, dirty, neglected child walking naked a trash dump, or a woman finding out she had cancer and not having any way to pay for treatment, or a family with no way to pay for food. God is making it all beautiful, in the midst of the dirt and the mess.
My goodbyes in Nicaragua were hard, but they were beautiful too. It was the right time.
Linette and I during Math and Literacy class at El Farito
With my Nicaraguan momma on my last night in Nica, after an amazing dinner.
One of my close friends, Karen
Mari, Karla, Jose, and Esteven, most of one of the families I was closest with in La Chureca
One of the moms and kids in our child sponsorship program with her mother's day craft at our Mother's Day party.
