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.