Antes de Nicaragua

Here we are – three weeks after our wedding, a month after we left Seattle, and one day before we move to Nicaragua – at a retreat center next to tiny Lake Beulah in the middle of Wisconsin nowhere.

I will always remember this place for being the first place I ever ate deep-fried green beans. I will also probably remember it as the place where we met our fellow missioners for the first time, where we did some intense preparation for our cultural transition to Nicaragua, and where we sat up on the roof watching the sun set and the stars come out.

Of course, it's been hard to fully appreciate the beauty of this place with the knowledge that we'll be in Nicaragua (Nicaragua!) in just a few days. And since we don't really know what American commodities we'll miss in Nicaragua, we've had to stock up on luxuries just in case we won't see them for two long years. Here are some last things we've tried to get in:

• Last chance to shake our heads and say “bleh bleh bleh bleh” to our baby nephew, Andresito (in Pennsylvania, on our last visit to Davie's family)
• Last Korean barbecue meal (visiting my brother in Chicago, with my mom and him)
• Last Frostee from Wendys (on our drive to Wisconsin from Chicago)
• Last swim in a weedy lake instead of a pristine ocean (after pontoon boat driver/priest Father Vince abandoned us in the middle of Lake Beulah and told us to swim to shore . . . That is only a slight exaggeration)

It has been really good to have this time to get to know our fellow volunteers: Kelsey and Erika, who will be working at the Batahola Center in Managua and who we'll see somewhat regularly, and Tommie, who will work as part of a literacy brigade in El Salvador. Learning more about the core values of Volunteer Missionary Movement has also reinforced that we can, in good conscience, completely sign on to the mission of this program.

We're processing lots of issues having to do with the delicacy of entering a culture not our own and figuring out how to accompany the people of that culture without forcing our own assumptions onto them. But one passage in VMM's “Spirit and Lifestyle” handbook by Edwina Gately makes me sure that whatever the struggles involved, this bridging of cultures is ultimately a good thing.

“We are first called and moved by the very love that lives within us,” she says. “It must reach out to others, spilling out, touching and transforming the world in which we live . . . We wish to challenge and dissolve the barriers that divide people and church and nations. We stand for oneness in the body of Christ.”

P.S. Thanks so much to those of you who have donated to our service already - we've succeeded in raising half of the funds we need for our two years in Nicaragua. If you're interested in supporting us, check out our page on VMM's website and click "donate." Thanks!

With our fellow volunteers: Kelsey, Tommie, and Erika

With the VMM board and S.V.D priests

From the roof of the retreat center