I’m running out of time.  I’ve got one day left in Nicaragua.  

I’m running out of food, running out of ways to feed myself–the stove and fridge have been gone for a week–running out of shampoo and soap and now, it seems, running out of functioning keys on my laptop.  

Today was, on balance, a marvelous day.  I had one more ultimate game with the Chiquilistogua guys, who I have come to like so much.  Even though I’ve  never played in a tournament on their team, they’ve completely made me a member.  Today they gave me a disc they had made with a photo of their team stamped on it which they all proceeded to sign.  It will be one of my favorite remembrances from Nicaragua, a trophy not of winning, but of connecting.  After Sunday’s game they went around and shared with me what they’ve appreciated about me.  I’m etching those words on my heart.  Whenever I doubt my years here have been well spent, I’ll read them over again.  

I said “goodbye” to my friend Pastor Bismarck tonight, though of course we said “Hasta Luego.”  We”ll see each other again, sooner or later.  He told me a story I’d never heard.  We knew each other for a month when he helped me buy my car, since he is also a great mechanic as well as a servant-hearted friend.  The car cost $8,100.  We had to pay that in cash, which we did by giving him the money to make the purchase.  The man selling the car was shocked.  

“Why would they trust you with that much money when they don’t know you?”  

“We’re both Christians,” Bismarck told him.  “They trust me because we know God.”  

The man, on the spot, asked Bismarck to pray for him to become a Christian, too.  Then he invited Bismarck back to his house, told his wife, and she also become a Christian right then.  

I’m not sure why I’d never heard this before–Bismarck isn’t exaclty reserved with his storytelling–but he told to me as a “look what your trust did” story.  He lifted my heart tremendously, which was timely to the Nth, because my heart has been dragging on the floor lately.  I hate leaving this country I love that is suffering and daily watching the government kill its young people and then claim they’ve done nonthing wrong.  I don’t just want my spirits boosted while this misery falls all around me, but I do want to believe that my time here has meant something as I watch it tick away.  

I’m running out of space, too.  Out of weight that I can pack, which means I have to decide which things I’m not taking with.  I’m not really into things, but there are a couple of extreme exceptions, the biggest of which is books.  I’m not going to say it’s killing me, but it’s wrenching away one of my biggest sources of comfort–if that makes no sense to you, you’re not a bibliophile, and if you ask one, it’ll make sense to them, I guarantee.  

I’m almost done in the house, which is fortunate because I’m down to the last coach.  It’s the only piece of furniture to lie or sit on left in the entire house.  I deliver it to a neighbor tomorrow.  Our dog, who has been my faithful companion during this stretch since my family left, also goes to where he’ll be staying tomorrow.  Kim loves him the most but I’m going to miss him.  

Obviously, all these things need to happen.  This is moving.  It’s a countdown.  It was my idea to stick around a little bit longer, to try to have good closure.  Because of my choice, it’s been like pulling a band-aid off a little bit at a time for ten days.  Not the best way to do it.  More time doesn’t change leaving.

I’m still glad I did.  I believe God has good things for me back in Washington.  I get to go back to some people I really love, in a place where I can see God clearly and smell pine trees (kind of the same thing in my book).  I’ll be happy to be back, even as I work through this grief, and at some point I’ll see what God’s got for my next gig.  I’m looking forward to understanding a little better.  

And having said all that, it’s been worth figuring out how to keep eating without refrigeration or conventional cooking.  It’s been worth the figurative hair on my arm getting pulled, hard enough to hurt, for ten straight days, so I could tell some people I love them and thank you, eat a little more Nicaraguan food (Thank you, Emma!), preach a couple more times, play just a little more ultimate, and give what little I can in the face of this horrible, bloody crisis.  

The only things I’m not running out of, it seems, are words and prayers.  Zeke and César, Andy and Byron, Gerald and Jeremias, Samuel, Andrés, and Adán, Juan Ramon and Bismarck, Mileydi and Juan Carlos and Dora, I will miss you all so much.  Lord Jesus, put an and to this violence and raging injustice, to the lies and manipulation and self-deception.  Shine your light so the darkness here cannot hide any longer.  Raise up the leaders to move this country out of this night into a day of restoration.  Bind up and heal the wounds of the grieving and the broken hearted.  

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for caring about my small story in the midst of all this, my ridiculous life where I hope God’s grace pours through.  Please pray for my friends who are suffering now and will still be suffering when my time here has run out.  

The stove and TV are gone.

The eph key on my computer doesn’t work anymore.

I gave away our second dog today.  That’s when I almost lost it.

I’ve said “goodbye” to some of the best people I’ve ever met, many of whom I–optimism aside–may never see again in this life, and hadn’t cried for one of them.  Part of it is how I’m wired:  if you’re right in front of me, I don’t miss you. If I’m still hugging you, you’re right here.  Even after we’ve said “goodbye” and I’m driving away, part of me thinks, “You just them like 30 seconds ago.”

Also, I think trying to do this transition in the midst of Nicaraguan’s violent upheaval, I have my emotions packed down tight into my abdomen.  I can feel them there.  It could get scary when they come up again, but not yet…except when I drove away after telling Sonny what a good dog she is.  I don’t know if she believed me.  She looked like she had doubts.*

We’re trying to use up everything.  We’re trying to limp by on what we have left–you don’t buy more when you can’t take any of it along.  Moving out of the country is different than moving across the street or city or nation.  Kim and I moved 9 times in our first  4 1/2 years of marriage.  I was in seminary and a lot of that was campus housing changes.  We loaded up pickup trucks or just carried boxes until it was all movd.  But we weren’t deciding among the art we brought with us, kitchen appliances, and keepsakes.  What’s replaceable?  How much to replace it?  Is that cheaper than the space it’s going to take in the suitcase? I have two full suitcases of books left

I realized as I was again going through my clothes to make another cut for tomorrow’s yard sale–our third, second in the barrio–that getting rid of things falls roughly between sense of direction and handwriting, both in order of what I’m good at and my emotional response to them.  If you don’t know me, I’ve been lost more times than I care to remember and a sixth grade teacher told me I would not pass college classes because my handwriting was so bad (she failed to foresee the microcomputer).  I was also raised by a packrat father and have the same tendencies.  So forcing myself to get rid of socks, t-shirts and ankle braces that I may or may not have money to replace kind of twists my guts.  You’d think I was raised in the Depression.

On the upside, we ventured out today and make it to the movie theater.  That was our second “long” outing in the past month, what used to be a 12-15 minute drive that now takes 25-30 because we have to take a route that goes literally in the opposite direction of where we’re actually trying to reach.  But I’m not complaining; I’m grateful we could get there at all.  We saw Solo for our last $4.50 movie tickets.  Ah, I will miss that.  A lot.

Last times, goodbyes, narrowing, and getting by on what’s left.

These aren’t real hardships, but I can feel myself hitting the wall.

Now I’m going to say a few blunt things and then something hopeful.
Most of our gringo friends have already gone.  I have mixed feelings about that.  I’m not judging; they have to do what they believe God leads them to do, just as we do.  But it’s weird.

People are expressing a lot of fear and concern for us.  I deeply appreciate the love behind that.  But we’re not afraid.  We’re not in direct danger.  We’re scared for the Nicaraguans who have no choice to leave if it gets worse.  We’re concerned for the people who are working for a meal today and there is no work.  Our beloved neighbors across the street who have become family to us had us over for dinner tonight, as part of our extended “goodbye.”  They are beautiful people who love God deeply.

They’re also so poor we bring plates with us when we come to dinner because they don’t own that many.  But this week, a man has been working for them, helping build an interior wall for the house renovation they have going–slow going, to put it mildly–and he is literally working to eat.  That’s what I’m afraid for.  So yes, pray for our safety and wisdom and discernment–but please pray for people to have enough to eat and for justice and shalom in Nicaragua.

ON that note, I’m going to end with the news I just read: the dialogue between the Ortega government and protesters went well today, for the first time!  I’m cautiously hopeful.  They are calling for an end to all forms of violence by all sides, independent human rights officials are being invited back in, they will dismantle barricades …and tomorrow they will discuss calling early elections to elect a new president and congress and that Ortega would not be allowed to run for reelection.

Wow.  I’ll end on a good note.  Pray.  Please pray.

 

Oh, and yes, I am pasting in the “f.”  Every single time.

*  As it turned out, she had serious doubts and bolted on her new owner.   They couldn’t catch her.  Kim had to go help them get her back.

It is severely stressful to live here right now. Today I said “goodbye” to a dear friend and one of my most valued ministry partners. We had a great conversation which all returned to “But who knows what will happen next?” “But who knows how things will be then?” “But we’ll have to see what’s happening by that time.”

Today, meaning 6PM Wednesday through 6PM Thursday, is officially my strangest day of being a missionary.  It’s all been strange, if I’m honest; I write my blog, in part, to convey how differently life runs here than in the U.S., at least than the U.S. of my experience.

But today, we have a paro nacional, a nationwide strike.  Have you ever experienced that?  I’m gonna say if you live in the US, you haven’t.  Nicaraguans may have.  I have not.  What will happen?  Maybe nothing, more literally nothing than most other days, if all businesses stay closed, as they might.  Will the outbreaks of violence increase?  Who knows?  Will it help?  We’ll have to see.

Our school went to online classes a month before we finished our semester, but Nicaraguan public schools, which have a school year that runs from february through November, still have kids going to class (I’m not sure about tomorrow; universities will close).  Seeing them appear in droves on their way home looks shockingly normal.

My Nicaraguan friends I saw today continued to be kind and generous and helpful.  Also, someone snuck into our house and stole Kim’s computer.  We don’t know how.  I tend to remember on some level that a spiritual battle constantly rages out of sight of most of us.  Good or bad, I don’t focus on it as much as some do.  Today, though, in the midst of all this chaos and violence and uncertainty, when I came home and Kim told me someone had stolen it, that felt like an attack from Satan.  And, of course, someone doing a bad thing to us.  She’s very sad and discouraged.  We walked around the house for a while looking for it because it didn’t seem possible.  But it’s gone.  It would take a miracle for it to come back, so I’d ask you to pray for one.

In perspective, of course, people are suffering much worse here.  It feels like a spiritual attack because it comes at such a vulnerable, difficult moment. That’s my experience of the enemy, to kick you in the gut or the teeth when you’re down.

When I say “strangest day,” I mean being face-to-face with a national crisis like this. Living in the midst of it, where life feels both normal and really freaking strange.  I mean try to imagine a US national strike in which all businesses close.  Right.  So do we hide inside tomorrow?  The Nicaraguans with whom I play ultimate invited me to their spontaneous practice tomorrow–they’re playing because hey! it’s a day off.  Will I play?  We’ll have to see.

I played with them today, which is their regular day to practice.  I can’t put into words how good it felt to run and vent off the accumulated stress.  I’d noticed my nerves were frayed and I had to control myself not to yell at my kids for things that normally wouldn’t even catch my attention–and at which I should not be yelling.  I even told my son today that a few times when I had to stop and recenter and calm myself, those were not his fault in the least, but simply an affect of the tension we’re all living under now.  Ultimate players, we played threes.  Non-ultimate players, three on three means a lot of running–I mean a ridiculous amount of running.  I loved it.  I needed it.

I don’t know how our Nicaraguan friends are coping with the stress.  I think, as my friend Eric pointed out, US folks believe  we have a right to choices, to control, to getting to decide how things go for us.  I believe many Nicaraguans, especially those who live in poverty, have fewer expectations (or illusions) to be in control of every situation, or to have the power over their circumstances to choose as they please.  I mean, like we do.

But I can say, not as a generalization or stereotype but thinking of each person with whom I’ve spoken today, that my Nicaraguan friends remain positive and hopeful.  When I ask, “Are things calm in your neighborhood” and the answer is, “Yes, they’re fine, just one truck drove by with seven guys with their faces covered shooting guns, but just that one time and otherwise it’s calm, everything else is good, gracias a Dios,” I’m pretty sure that would sound different being described by gringo friends. Or me.  

So we keep counting down days, we keep breathing in stress, we keep trying to love the people well while we’re still here.  Tonight our friend Aaron bought pizza for everyone (thanks, Aaron!) and we had two Nicaraguan families and a temporary bachelor over for dinner.  We had a blast.  We laughed.  Of course we talked about the situation here, and about our stolen computer. Not everything was light-hearted.  But we celebrated being together while we still are and we enjoyed our friendships even though tomorrow is completely uncertain.

My emotions are so overwrought tonight I don’t know if I’ll be able to write anything coherent.  But I can’t keep going around the same circles in my head and if I read any more news I might explode or have an aneurysm.  So here we go:

Jesus always, and I mean always, takes the side of the oppressed and the persecuted.  Always.

That is what the Gospels say.

In fact, the suffering human being is Jesus.  That is what Jesus says in the Gospels.

“I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

“When, Lord?”

“Just as you did it for the least of these, you did it for me.”

When you fed that hungry person, you fed Jesus.  Symbolically, metaphysically, literally, I don’t know, but you fed Jesus himself.  That’s what Jesus says.

When you did not feed that hungry person, you did not feed Jesus.  “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat.”  He says nothing about whether you saw him or lived in the same country or had the same color skin or agreed politically.  That doesn’t come up.

I believe this about Scripture: we have to understand the context of what is written and then apply it to our own context.

So, the context of Matthew 25?

Jesus is telling his disciples the last things he wants them to hear and remember.  In chapter 26, they share the Passover meal (we often call it “The Last Supper” or “The Lord’s Supper”), and then Jesus prays in Gethsemane, is betrayed, and arrested.

In immediate context, Jesus says “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him…”

 When we interpret Scripture, we discern between passages directed to a specific context and from which we glean general principles, and those that have transcendent or universal truth, meaning they apply, basically as stated, to all times and places.  

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  Transcendent.  All times, all places.

“When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.”  2 Timothy 4:13  Specific context, not to be applied universally.

“No longer drink only water, but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.” I Timothy 5:23  You tell me.

Thus, when Jesus says, “all the nations will be gathered before him,” we conclude, with confidence, we apply it universally.

Now, Jesus gives a range of examples in this passage.  I was hungry, thirsty, a stranger (which, in biblical context, means I was a person from another country now living in your country), naked, sick, in prison.

Question: does Jesus mean rape victims?  Is he strictly limiting this teaching to these six categories?  How loosely or strictly is he defining his words?  Lots of people go hungry every day.  Does he mean the ones who are starving to death?  Only those?  The child on your block who is malnourished?  The alcoholic who begs for change, who has not eaten in a day and a night but might take your quarter and use it on more booze?

Here’s what I think about these questions: read the Gospels and tell me Jesus’ intent.  What is his heart?  How does he treat the woman caught in adultery?  The woman bleeding for twelve years?  Peter, after Peter said, “I swear to God I have never heard of this man Jesus!”  What does Jesus tell us the father of the prodigal son does, says, is?

This isn’t a test, much less a test with tricky, loaded questions.

YES, rape victims.  Yes, children who have enough to eat and drink but who receive no attention or love from parents or teachers or anyone else.  Yes, for the love of God, suicidal teenagers.  YES, transgender kids.  Yes, middle-aged, successful-appearing alcoholics, and yes, porn addicts and gambling addicts and…  Yes.

Yes.  Yes.  Yes.

So come back now to how Jesus always sides with the oppressed and the persecuted.  Who is Jesus?  What is his heart?  Would Jesus side with the bully or the victim of bullying?

What a stupid question.

Yes, I know.

Now tell me what we do about refugees.  Tell me what we do about victims of rape and domestic violence who seek asylum in the US.  Tell me, on what do we base that decision?

Tonight, I am watching the news blow up.  Tonight, in Nicaragua, innocent people are being attacked by the police.  But worse, they are no longer waiting for cover of darkness.  Now they are attacking in broad daylight.  It’s not really safe to talk about it, but neither is it safe for my neighbors for me to keep silent.  I can’t do anything to stop the riot police from attacking innocent children–my friend Andres said his brother was smashed in the face with a gun and two of his teeth were broken but he was not protesting, he was just at work.  All I can do right now is pray and ask you to pray.  Are you praying?  Do I side with the bully or the young man getting his face bashed with a rifle butt?  Which side is Jesus on?

The United States, as I understand it, just changed the law so that women who have been raped or brutalized by gangs in their countries, whose lives are in danger, will not be granted asylum in the US.  Yes, we condemn those gang members as “animals” and decry their violence, but we will not offer protection to their victims?  No?

“I was raped and I came to you for safety and you…”

Finish that sentence.

 

Yesterday from 5 to 5:45 I walked home from school.  I’ve done this walk approximately countless times.  

Today, in the late morning, a good friend was robbed by people with machetes.  She was mugged next to a coffee shop that’s on my route home.  In daylight.  Kim was at another coffee shop about 200 yards away.  

A convenience store (super-mini) on the route got held up at gunpoint a few nights before.  We stop in there all the time.

Protests in Nicaragua continue with no end in sight and no visible evidence of progress.  We talk every day about how this might come out, trying to imagine scenarios in which the situation improves.  But none of us can see a realistic way back, while forward is murky and uncertain.  Nearly every day, protesters die at the hands of government enforcers wearing one uniform or another.

I’ve spent seven years trying to convince people in the States that “No, Nicaragua is not at war, it’s not violent, that ended thirty years ago.  Nicaragua has the lowest violent crime in Central America.”  Now, everything that I’ve been convincing them isn’t happening…is.  

The protestors are demanding that the President and Vice-President leave.  They are arguing for immediate new elections, rather than waiting for the next election cycle in 2021.  

I don’t know who would run if the government agreed to excelerated elections.  No obvious leader has emerged among the protesting groups.  

Police are no longer enforcing traffic laws.  They aren’t present to keep order.  Conditions are becoming increasingly uncertain and dangerous.  We’re all trying to figure out how dangerous, what precautions to take, and whether this is our new normal.   

The bigger problem is that businesses are flatlining.  People are afraid, they’re staying home, and they’re not spending money on anything but necessities.  The more this happens, the more it happens.  It’s a spiral.  Our neighbor has no one coming to get a motorcycle repaired. Therefore, they have no money coming in.  They can’t go out and buy anything.  

Poverty has so many dimensions you might never consider.  We went to the zoo last Sunday, our biggest outing in weeks.  We heard that the zoo is not getting enough visitors to be able to feed the animals.  There are so many aspects to this crisis, so many dominoes falling, hitting other dominoes, which then hit more.

Most people here live in poverty.  They don’t have margin for weeks or months of unemployment, de facto layoffs, reduced hours, business slowing to a halt.  But here we are and people are adapting, figuring out how to keep going.  We’re asking when it will end but so far it’s just getting worse.  Tourists aren’t visiting.  Of course they’re not.  Short-term mission teams are canceling. Of course they are.  Health clinics rely on the funds and people power that these teams bring so that they can keep providing medical care in impoverished communities.  Now they’re scrambling to continue their work.  

For years we’ve seen people living at subsistence level, maintaining a precarious stasis, while parts of the infrastructure slowly improve.  Roads.  New businesses.  

But now it’s this downward spiral.  The pictures we keep seeing of nearly empty airplanes mean more than lost business for airlines.  Those are breaks in the chain that so many people here depend on, including many who don’t realize they do.  The US surfer or backpacker or bird watcher isn’t on that plane, so the restaurants where they eat and the hotels where they stay don’t have their business, so the restaurant and hotel employees are losing work hours and they can’t even pay for the gas to put in their only family vehicles, their motorcycles, much less bring them to my neighbor for repairs.  

That’s just one link.  I heard the biggest car dealer in the country is down 70%.  Not at seventy percent, down seventy percent.  Surviving at thirty percent right now.  Imagine how that ripples through the economy.

I don’t know if things will get better before they get a lot worse.  The business owners may apply pressure for change.  Maybe. The general population suffering is not the same thing as the wealthy suffering.  But the ninety percent living in poverty have less voice than the ten percent who own most of the businesses and property in the country.  

So we wait.  And we pray.  I don’t mean the types of “thoughts and prayers” which actually mean that people merely feel badly and are commiserating.  I mean we pray as a wailing cry to the living God who sees this suffering and increasing misery.  I mean we beseech God to act, to bring peace and justice–and soon.  

“And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”        Luke 18:7-8

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Meanwhile, meanwhile, we’re moving back to the States.  Yesterday, I gave ten boxes of books to our school library.  Boxes.  We sold our dining table.  Someone bought our favorite plant, a beautiful white flowering tree.  Our dog Zoe went to the farm–no, an actual farm, a finca where someone was happy to adopt her.  Those are holes in my life.  Those are pieces of what has been my life that aren’t here anymore.

It’s just a move. People move all the time. Part of the mission experience is the revolving door of folks who come here for so many different reasons…and then leave.  We’ve seen it, a lot.  We knew eventually it would be us, unless we felt clear God was calling us to stay forever…and “eventually” arrived.

But I’m losing pieces of my life, of the life that we’ve built here, and I’m grieving that loss.  Last night we said goodbye to Bella, Tino, and Tadi Ndoro, who have been our neighbors and ministry partners in the barrio these past three years.  I’m having my last times with young adults who have shared their lives with me and whom I have grown to love.  

This was going to be hard and painul no matter what, and I’m an emotionally-oriented person, so I don’t have the option of just “doing what needs to be done.”  Bibliophiles, you’ll get this: giving ten boxes of books felt like cutting out a piece of myself.*  

But the “normal” leave-taking involves a few of the adventures you wanted to do one last time or left until last. Instead, we’re making certain we’re home by dark and carefully checking the latest before we go anywhere.  I was walking home yesterday because the Tuesday evening basketball game was cancelled, so I was trying  (and failing) to have a Tuesday afternoon game. 

Everyone feels like they are losing pieces of their lives right now, not just we who are moving.  So many have lost family members.  So many have been put in jail without explanation. The front page of today’s paper tells of the death count, the tranques (road blockades), and the tumbling economy. Friends who were here have gone; friends who planned to come back are not.  The city feels different, more unpredictable.  People are cautious and tense.  The guy carrying my groceries hugged me yesterday. The strangest part is how normal it is most of the time, even as we pray and hold our breath.    

As an irony, our barrio feels much safer than the city in general.  When we’re coming home, we turn the corner onto our street and breathe a sigh of relief.  I can feel the tension seep out of me, back here with our borrachos, where we can hear the church across the street most every night, where people are still sitting out on their chairs in front of their homes and talking after dark.  

So home is the closest that we have to normal right now, though the possessions that made it homey are slowly trickling out the door.  Pieces of our lives shifting, changing, disappearing. 

Meanwhile, Annalise’s graduation went from an evening ceremony with a banquet across town to a morning ceremony with a banquet at the school.  Not worth the risk to try to cross the city, they decided.  So we’ll celebrate and make the best of it.  

And pray for God’s  redemption for all that we’ve lost.  

 

 

 

*Am I too attached to my books?  Of course I am!  Who said otherwise?

 

I just got back from Costa Rica last night. I went with three guys, Boone, Norman, and Dalke (not their real names).  We went for an ultimate tournament. Since Kim and I are moving back to the U.S., my friends suggested one last big adventure, our last tournament together, maybe our last time to have real, focused time together. We’re all husbands and dads, all in ministry, and always have multiple things vying for our attention. Uninterrupted time together becomes rare.

Four days to hang out and play ultimate? A treasure.

The timing of our trip seemed dubious, since Nicaragua is suffering severe political turmoil and violence right now. We were deciding day-to-day whether we would go;  finally, the night before, we determined that we could.  It probably sounds crazy that we decided to take such a trip at this time, but the truth is, choosing not to would have changed nothing here.  Everyone was fine while we were gone.  The hardest thing to explain is how normal things feel in Nicaragua right now, except when they’re not.  Horrible things are happening, yet our families are safe. Panicking or creating more drama helps no one.  We keep praying.  

Had we planned to drive, as we have on every other trip to Costa Rica,* we would have canceled. The roads are not safe and we could not have gotten through.  But because this was the last hoorah, we had decided, before any of this broke out, to fly. So we went.

We departed Managua from an empty airport. I estimated a five-to-one ratio of employees to travelers…at 6:45 PM. We could each have had a row or three of seats to ourselves, had we wanted.

Costa Rica, after a month of unpredictable violence and instability in Nicaragua, struck us as bizarre. Visiting Costa Rica always feels closer to being in the US than it does to being in Nicaragua, and even more so this time. Three hundred kilometers seemed worlds away from our turmoil here. Many Costa Ricans asked us, “How are things there? What’s going on now? It’s so sad, all that’s happening.” They care, but they asked as you would ask about any far distant, tragic yet personally unrelated situation. Our problems had not touched their world.

Most of our guy time together would sound boring if I described it or tried to write it up as dialogue. You had to be there. Being there, it was utterely hilarious. Being there, I felt so grateful for these three men, for what great friends they’ve been to me for the past seven years. Inside jokes, inappropriate comments, sudden, insightful depth in the midst of an ordinary-sounding conversation. Kindness, generosity, encouragement, affirmation. Truth-telling.

I’d never played cribbage before our trip. By the flight home, I was watching Boone and Dalke play. Cribbage went from a card game I didn’t understand to a spectator sport for me in the space of four days.  I still suck at it, but the key– and maybe a key to life–is that I was playing with people I really enjoy. If they had been excited about tiddly-winks or Go Fish, we might have played those all weekend.  I’m sure it would have gotten competitive.

Another lesson I remembered not to forget was to live in the present.  It would have been easy for me to have felt so nostalgic about our trip that I forgot to enjoy our trip.  Instead, I focused on enjoying each little moment as it happened.  The breakfast burritos and incredible coffee on Thursday morning.  Learning about Arenal Volcano and how it buried 15 square kilometers of Tico farmland under lava and ash.  Realizing that we were sitting at that breakfast within range of that volcano. and the rocks weighing several tons that flew out of it at–ready?– 600 meters per second would have smashed us before we had time to insult one another one final time.  We talked about those rocks the rest of the trip.

Other moments, lived in and remembered:

*The three of them had burgers and fries on Friday right before the game; I ate salad.

*On Saturday night, which is classic ultimate party scene, we were happily in our beds by 8:30, watching the Warriors beat the Rockets by 30, playing some cribbage, laughing about our old men selves.  Crazy that our wives risk letting us go out.

*All the time spent talking and laughing in the pool and the hot tub. Norman asked me what I’ll miss most about living in Nicaragua.  That was good to reflect on.

*Three of us predicted the Celtics would win Game 7, while one successfully called the outcome.  A modicum of boasting ensued.**

*Sunday afternoon, post all games, sitting at our traditional Tico steak joint we always go to, reviewing the one-sided finals in our minds and what we needed to do differently to have won it all, playing–guess what?–and eating, drinking, laughing, and getting too full. We declared Sunday-afternoon-onward as the “Replenishing” portion of the trip, which sounded better than “gorging,” “bingeing,” or “drowning our sorrows.”

*The huge, bearded iguanas that came right up to us to share our breakfast on Monday morning.  From there, talking about Komodo Dragons, and then all the topics that we tangented on to, one after the other.

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Now I’m going to indulge a bit. You don’t have to read about the ultimate tournament (technically speaking, you don’t have to read any of this), but I am going to write about it. This was my last hurrah with my friends and my last hurrah to play an ultimate tournament here.

Dalke and Boone were on one team and Norman and I were on another. Of the eight teams, ours both made the semi-finals.

I’m forty-nine. I’m a good ultimate player, but these days I keep having to overcome the doubts that while I may be a good forty-nine-year-old ultimate player, I’m no longer competitive with the younger folks.

Hat tournaments have their own unique make up. Rather than having pre-established teams come in, for the “Volcanic Tournament,” two people maximum can request to play together  and the organizers pick the teams “from a hat.” They are “randomly” put together in the sense that players rank themselves and then get placed on teams in an attempt to balance beginner, intermediate and advanced players, tall and not-so-tall, throwers and cutters (less-throwers or faster-runners-arounders).  The question I always ask when ranking myself is “compared to whom?” You just guess.

I loved our team. I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed a hat team more than I enjoyed this one. I always enjoy playing with Norman.  We had one elite player who was fantastically talented, tall, humble, and fun. We had a 25-year-old gal, just diagnosedas cancer free in February, playing with her PICC line still in her chest. She got Spirit of the Game. But most importantly, we figured out in a very short time how to play together and each find our role.

We played a game on Friday night, which I’d never done in a tournament before, ever. Since we arrived late Thursday, we had all Friday to relax and prepare. We prepared by sitting in the hot tub in the pouring rain for three hours.

I played awfully. I was pressing too hard, my timing was off, I messed up a couple plays I should have made and then couldn’t get those out of my head. First games in hat tournaments are notoriously ugly because the teams are just figuring out how to play together. That was us. Games were to eleven points which meant half-time at six–and we were losing 6-1. At that moment, I wondered if we would suck and if, ultimate-wise, this might be a long, rough weekend. I don’t, after all, love losing. But we fought back well in the second half and even got to 9-7 beore losing 11-7.  I was bummed but not crushed.

Saturday, though. Saturday was epic.

I’ve played in a lot of tournaments, so many I’ve lost track. I’d never had an experience like Saturday.

On Saturday, our team won all five of our games. That’s a good day.  We won four games at universe point. That means we were tied at the end, with time having run out and next point wins. Four times.

And we won.

All. Four. Times.

Not only have I not done that beore, I’ve never seen it before. Winning two games at universe point in a tournament is pretty darned good. You might win three, over the course of two days, if you had a clutch team.

We won four out of four that way on the same day.

The other game we finally got a blow-out, winning 11-5 (I think).

I must add that in two of our four universe point wins, we could
have won more easily but let the other team get close after we were well ahead.  I realized then we loved drama.

I won’t go through a play-by-play of each game. I could.  I had a good day. On Saturday, I caught the ones I dropped or mis-read on Friday, made the throws my team didn’t yet realize I could throw on Friday night, and somehow, to my amazement, became our go-to cutter.

See, that’s weird, because I’m a thrower. A handler. I’m older and slower but I can throw better.  That’s my role in ultimate for at least 10-12 years now.

But something strange and magical happened on Saturday in Arenal. I got fast again.

In case you’re wondering if I’m deluded or letting the stress get to my brain, I wasn’t the only one who noticed. My team, who had not played with me before, just decided I was. But my friends, who have played with me for seven years and watched me get slower, also commented, in their affirming-but-jerky way. However, the real proof was that I cut deep and caught several hucks (US football translation: went long and caught several bombs). I beat a Tico guy who had beat me deep back in our Nicaragua tournament in November. I was getting to the disc and getting to it first. So, since we had other players, especially two gals and the aforementioned guy, who could throw well, I traveled back in time about 12 years to when I was more valuable to the team as the guy who could run fast, cut quick, and get open to catch the disc first. Then look for a throw. Or just give it back to the handlers and cut again.  By the end of the fifth game I was finally cramping in both legs and had to sit out the last third of the game–which we still won on universe point!

Now remember, I went into this tournament wondering whether I could still keep up. To find out not only could I keep up but often beat much younger players shocked and delighted me. I had trained pretty hard coming in, within the confines of what my time allows and my body will put up with.*** I lost a few pounds, which sounds like no big deal but those suckers really don’t like to come off at this age like they used to when I was younger. I also think I had “home field advantage” in the sense that Costa Rica and Nicaragua are both crazy humid and most of the US players were not acclimated to the tropics. Nonetheless, having my twenty-to-thirty-years-younger teammates comment on what good condition I was in felt great. One teammate even commented on my abs…and that’s when I realized they were all BSing me.

I’m going to say three more things about our games.

We lost in the semi-finals, to a team we had beaten (by 1!) the day before. We had plenty of chances to beat them and just didn’t capitalize, but that is life and sports.

Second, I didn’t play enough in that game. In spite of having a great Saturday and gaining the confidence of all my teammates, I still was hesitant, partially pacing myself for the final game I still thought we’d have, partially not wanting to assert myself too much. But hindsight is twenty-twenty and I should have played a lot more points than I did and taken more of a chance to win it or blow it or us. Even having played for so many years, I shrink back sometimes from putting myself on the line, not wanting to risk being the goat. I played several of the crucial points, but there reached a point when I simply should have stayed in or all I could, and I did not.

Which brings me to the last thing, which may be my least favorite thing about playing ultimate: I cannot stop replaying what I could have done differently. This has always tortured me after tournaments. Relatively speaking, this was a mild one because I had much bigger things going on this weekend than simply playing ultimate and because Saturday was one of my favorite days playing ultimate, ever. But I’m still seeing a bad pass I threw, remembering when I should have gone in and knew I should have and didn’t, I’m still feeling how much energy I had left after we lost the game, which tells me I did not do what I always coach my players to do—leave it all out there! No changing any of it now, of course. The best I can do is learn from it and try to recognize the situation next time so I can make different choices.

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Boone, who is arguably the best player among the four of us,**** had been nursing a nasty and strange injury coming up to the tournament.  He was hopeful he might still recover and play, but I’m sure by the time we left he knew he would be very limited.  He ended up playing only a few points in each game, if that.  I mention this because he might have chosen not to come, realizing he would mostly be watching (torture for any of us, especially because he could have helped his team make, and possible win, the finals). I consider it a profound gift that he did all the organizing and came to spend that time with us, even though he could not play.

As we were driving back to the airport to come home, two things happened which capture both the trip and my friendship with these three. First, we “happened upon” a bungee-jumping operation. It was impressive. The jumps were 143 meters, which is a LONG way up there. I bungee jumped once, many moons ago, during the first year of our marriage, and Kim was not thrilled.  It’s still one of those stories we tell.  So if you’re wondering what she thought of this, she’s finding out as she’s reading, just like you are. It cost $75…

And we didn’t do it. We didn’t really have time. We hit some traffic on the way back to the airport and had some difficulty getting the car returned (we think that’s part of their racket to get to charge extra), so it was a good thing we didn’t try to squeeze it in.

But we would have. Even though it scared the bejeebers out of me the first time, I could feel the group testosterone building to do it. Dalke said his palms started sweating as soon as we drove in.

On the drive, after we didn’t bungee jump (honestly, Love, we didn’t), we talked about a deep, perilous, more-sensitive-than-I’ll-share-even-on-my-blog issue. I started it, because these are the men in my life I can trust. Yes, they’re idiots, yes, they tell more bathroom humor jokes than I’ll ever appreciate–and don’t even get me started on the country music!–but they are also the guys to whom I can speak the truth and know they will speak truth back to me, without judgment or condemnation, yet also without sugar-coating, downplaying, or evasion.

The epitome of our time together:

“Okay, I’m going to bring up a serious topic. Ready?”

“Ready.”

Serious topic introduced.

Joke.

Joke.

“Sorry, I’ll be serious now, and–”

One more joke.

Then (and only then) we proceed to have a great, honest conversation for over an hour. Things in the darkness came into the light and we become more whole, maybe a little closer to God, and more trusting of one another, even as our time together (well, mine with them) dwindled.

Plus, they kept making stupid jokes.

 

 

 

*I’ve made 10 trips to Costa Rica in the time I’ve lived in Nicaragua: 1 family trip with in-laws, 2 youth team ultimate trips as coach, 3 ultimate tournaments for “grown-ups,” and 4 trips to coach the basketball team. In peaceful times, it’s a 3-hour drive to the border.

**Which one?  Well, history is written by the winners.

***I’ve learned that if I train as hard as I can, I will injure myself and not get to play at all.  I’ve therefore toned down my training to find the balance between getting in shape and overdoing it.  I now save the overdoing it for the tournaments.

****If I were a captain picking teams, I would pick him first over the rest of us. Do feel free to argue otherwise.

If you have not been following the situation in Nicaragua, it’s too complex for me to explain here.  I don’t even know if I can summarize accurately, but we’re experiencing severe civil unrest as the division between those who support the President and those who demand his immediate removal deepens and grows more violent.  If you want to know more, you can read these articles or contact me.

We’ve lived here, in this “developing country,” for seven years and experienced some inconveniences and a few genuine problems (the kind that might make you self-consciously dub yours “first-world problems”).  We’ve also experienced a massive adjustment and adaptation–as well we should have.  We love living here.  To be more precise, we love the people here, and we have grown to love this beautiful, troubled country.  

We’ve never before experienced anything like what is happening now.  

My daughter just said, “I’m sick of all the uncertainty.  I just want to know what’s going to happen.”  

We’re all inclined to think about things in terms of how they impact us.  This is human nature.  I don’t think it’s a bad thing unless it’s to an extreme; perhaps the process of maturity is growing to think about situations, and life in general, in terms of how it impacts others and not just ourselves.  I’m talking about myself here, not my daugther.  

The impact on us:  our school has been cancelled for the better part of three weeks now.  Shortened days or no school at all starting two days after we went to Ireland, so the twentieth of April.  I think we’ve had 3 full school days in three weeks.  Last Friday, we tried to cancel school because the busses would have to cross through demonstrations and some could not make it to school at all.  The ones that made it through were told, just as they arrived, to turn around and take the students home again. 

These aren’t easy decisions for our administration to make.  There is much at stake.  Obviously, the safety of our kids is the highest concern.  Information we obtain on what is happening around Managua is always uncertain.  We know certain locations simply are not safe now.  But others can flare up instantly.  We hear about planned protests and counter-protests.  We use the best discernment we can in a morass of uncertainty. 

Our basketball teams, boys and girls, just went to Costa Rica for the yearly sports festival to which we’re invited.  We departed Wednesday, after a very long and complicated decision-making process about whether we should go at all.  The pressing question was: will the kids be safe, especially on their return?

Then last night (Saturday), we got word that there were massive protests scheduled for today and, moreover, that tomorow (Monday) would likely get much worse with the scheduled dialogue between the government and protesting parties.  Nobody knows for sure what will happen when such news goes out.  But decisions have to be made.  Our administration decided we needed to skip each team’s last game and return as early as possible Sunday (yep, today.  Good math.) to be cautious.  To be wise.  To be better safe than sorry. 

Nothing happened on the way home.  We left five hours earlier than originally planned–we would have left at 11:30AM (at the earliest), and this after our games had already been switched to the first scheduled for the day–and made record time getting back.  We saw two small groups of people, within a few kilometers of the school, standking on the side of the road, waving flags.  That was all.  

However, we’d gotten reports that one of the towns we needed to pass through might be blocked.  The bus company from which we rented the bus, which has direct knowledge of all its routes, took the extraordinary precaution of having us switch busses, mid-route. I know, it sounds like something you’d do if you were trying to elude your pursuers (“We’ll stop and switch getaway cars in that deserted garage…”), but we did it in case we had to take backroads or go through large blockades and needed more mobility.  In other words, the bus company anticipated we might have a much harder, more precarious drive and took steps to prepare.  

Uncertainty.  

To be clear, I’m not complaining that we came back early–though as coach, sure, I was disappointed–I’m giving this example to convey what we’re experiencing right now in this country we love.  My daughter is in her senior year and everything about the end of this school year is uncertain.  We are preparing to move back to the States after our school year ends, but in addition to making plans and prioitizing good closure, we’re trying to navigate each day’s developments and variables and be wise and cautious While. Not. Overreacting. 

No one knows what will happen here next.  Will violence increase? Will there be any compromise reached when the dialogue, reportedly scheduled for tomorrow, takes place between the government and the protesters?  Will the protests lose momentum as people suffering poverty reach their limits–when you live without margin, this can happen quickly–and have no choice but to return to “normal” life?  

Several friends have told me that what is happening now resembles what happened in 1979 and 1980.  This startles me the most.  We know our history.  

We pray to learn from history.

We pray for peace and justice.

We don’t know what will happen next.  

1.  I know for certain that God called me here.
2. Spending 10 cordobas (30 cents) on tortillas every day makes a difference in my neighbor’s life.
3. I can walk across the street to buy fresh tortillas every day.  
4. I’m a mentor to a significant percentage of the young ultimate players in the country. Let’s see you do that in the States.
5. It’s never winter but is Christmas for a month, yet Christmas is tranquilo. (Loud from bombas, but tranquilo.)
6. I spend more of my time seeing what others don’t have and thinking about how I can help than seeing what others have and thinking about how I need more.
7. I’ve learned to be grateful for running water.
8. I’ve learned to be grateful any time our car runs.
9. I trust our mechanics.
10. I’ve gotten to know God better through people whose faith is stronger than mine.
11. I get to use all my spiritual gifts here.
12. It’s green.  All. Year. Long.  
13. Yes, it’s hot, but I’ve noticed that the heat and humidity are actually great for preventing muscle pulls and other injuries.  
14. I can play ultimate year-round.
15. The elderly woman who sells me avocados smiles at me and hugs me.
16. I get to help my neighbor prepare her sermons!
17. Talking about God, being grateful for what God has done, praising God, is part of every normal conversation. 
18. There are cool lizards everywhere.
19. I get to encourage young adults to follow Jesus here.
20. I get to live among people living in poverty and be their neighbor, not someone offering charity.  
21. Our children assume that people look different than we do, come from different cultures, speak different languages, live at different means, and this is all normal life.  
22. The elderly man on the corner always greets me with his toothless smile as his “Amigito,” little friend, though he is 5-foot nothing and can’t weigh a hundred pounds. His smile and greeting always lift my day.
23. We’ve seen miraculous healings here.
24. Kim has done extraordinary work here and has grown in her boldness and her leadership.  
25. Kim and I, for many of the Nicaraguan staff at NCA, are the gringos who serve as the bridge people.  We’re the ones they trust and talk to.  
26. I don’t feel like I’ve done a great job and I’d like to do better.
27. Inexpensive, incredible local produce: limones, piñas, bananas, papaya, sandia, pepinos, mangos, hierba buena, etc, etc.
28. I didn’t make this a list of individuals I’d miss, but some people dear to my heart who have changed me through our friendship.
29. The sheer beauty of this country.
30. Seeing God’s face every time I walk out my door: in the borrachos who hang out by our house, in the children who come to our preschool, in the teeny neighbor girls who love me, in the strangers who will return my greeting and blessing…

Nicaragua Diary, Day 124

My neighbor, Mileydi, asked me where in the Bible it talks about La Roca.  The rock.  

The Bible is a big book.  I’ve read it and I can search Google, but we’re still talking about a big question.  

My mind went immediately to Jesus’ parable of the bad workers in the vineyard because it concludes with Jesus’ saying to the Chief Priests and the Pharisees:

  “Have you never read in the scriptures:

Nicaragua Diary, Day 119

This morning I got up before I usually do, before the rest of my family did, and drove to the vela for my friend Jose Manuel’s grandmother.  I didn’t know her.  She died on Thursday and his family held her vela Thursday night, then celebrated Jose Manuel’s son’s graduation from colegio (high school), then returned to observe another night’s vela before proceeding for the funeral this morning at 8AM.

That means they had not one but two all-night memorial services for her, with a graduation celebration in between.

I’m a gringo.  Not that many people mistake me for Nica, and if anyone does, they get that misconception corrected the instant I open my mouth.  Even though it’s an all-night service, just before 6AM is not the time to arrive for a vela.*  But, I believe, I was given the gringo pass, i.e. I was doing something slightly culturally inappropriate, but I’m a gringo, so my Nicaraguan friends don’t say ,”Dude!  INappropriate!”

Instead, Jose Manuel greeted me enthusiastically.  I was offered me a cup of coffee and a seat.  I’m sure they’d sat up all night but no one else was sitting now, but Jose Manuel sat with me.  About half a dozen people were puttering around, stacking up the chairs they’d rented and piling them on a truck, damping down the dust with a hose, and generally looking busy.  I asked Jose Manuel if he’d slept.  Yes, he told me, he’d returned from the graduation about 9:40PM and slept from four to five AM  Maybe it was 3:30 to 5:30.  It wasn’t long.  This was his second full night up.

But here’s the thing:  he was glad to see me.  Not, “Okay, I can handle one more visitor,” much less, “You’re kidding me, but it’s a gringo so I have to put up with this.”

No, this mattered.  We don’t understand Nicaraguan culture in a lot of ways, but we grasp this:  showing up matters.  We’ve had enough conversations to know that our friends remember who came to a vela.  When being present is all you can give, it counts.

His grandmother raised Jose Manuel; in truth, she was his mother.  She died at 87 years old.   He is grieving.  I came and shared his grief for an hour.  We talked.  I told him about Isaac’s death, about our Miracle Girl, Annalise, and about losing my father.  He told me how having this woman raise him had shaped his life.

He shared a little about her life and some things about his growing up and their family.  We talked about death.  We talked about life.  We talked about what hope in God means, how God is faithful and you can see lives change, yet sometimes babies die and how do you explain that?  We talked about how often grief and joy come together, inseparable, side by side.  I told him how Aria’s birthday is the day after Isaac’s birthday, which means every year we remember our son who is gone and then turn around and celebrate our daughter who is here with us.

I’m not a morning person and last night, like so many nights, I slept poorly.  I promised myself I would get up and go to the vela and then spent hours awake during the night.  Nonetheless, I was awake again at 5:15 and decided it was worth it, anyway.

It was.  It was one of the better hours I’ve spent in a long time.  I don’t think I made a huge difference.  I don’t think I said anything profoundly comforting or insightful, even if you translated it into English.

But I was there.

 

 

*Kim went at 5 AM the morning before, after the first night’s vela, and I think got a similar pass.