I left the mainland for a week earlier this month with a group of fellow United Methodists from our church in Kensington, as part of a “Volunteers In Mission” team to help the people in a Nicaraguan village construct a classroom next to a church.

It was, in many ways, like the “Feed the Hungry” or “Gawad Kalinga" trips to the Philippines that many in our community have participated in. And with satisfying results. Recipients of these visits (the poor and the needy) and the relatively affluent Filipino Americans who want to reconnect with the homeland both receive lasting benefits.

In our case at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, it was part of a “discipleship adventure,” a ministry of a church without walls. And without borders.
This journey outside the United States was also, in a personal sense, much like revisiting the places of my childhood. Ciudad Sandino, where we were based, reminds me a lot of Magugpo, Magatos, Kabacan and Marawi - barrios and towns in Mindanao where I grew up. Half of the time, the power is out - mostly in the early evenings. There’s no water as well. But darkness brings people out, sitting in their porches, chatting with their neighbors, engaging anyone who passes by while waiting for the lights.

In Ciudad Sandino - about an hour away from the capital city - “we’re used to these things,” says Maria, our host. Our 21-person team stayed in different homes where families provided our beds and daily meals, with much care and hospitality.

Nicaragua is no tourist haven - thanks to an earthquake and a hurricane that devastated the country, not to mention the US-funded Contra wars that subverted the people’s aspirations for national democracy. We’re told it will take 20 years for the Nicaraguan people to rebuild, and they are only in their seventh year.

Poverty is everywhere. Managua - not unlike Manila - is a sad, depressing place. The streets and parks are teeming with beggars, mostly children and women. And vendors are all over, trying simply to survive. Unemployment is high.

“This used to be a vibrant city,” Maria reminded us.

So, as you can imagine, this was not an excursion for pleasure - although there were lots of pleasant moments, especially the interactions with the town’s folks. Mostly members of the “Iglesia Cristiana Milagro de Fe" (Church of the Christian Miracle of Faith.), they taught us construction skills, like mixing sand with cement and applying layers of the stuff to finish off a brick wall. We worked with them, side by side, sweating it out in the heat. Not many words were exchanged as they don’t speak English very well. Many in our group didn’t speak Spanish either. But somehow, we managed to communicate. Especially with the children who seem to be everywhere, beaming with smiles at strangers who reached out to them as friends.

Our team raised at least a thousand dollars each for the trip - partly to pay for our own air fares and the rest to fund expenses for the church construction. A month before, we washed cars in our church parking lot to raise more funds. Someone in our group raised a point about the cost effectiveness of the mission. Wouldn’t it have been better to give all the money to the church and let them hire the laborers required to complete the project, putting the cost of 21 roundtrip tickets to better use, like reducing unemployment? After much reflection, we decided the person-to-person encounters and experiences were worth it. Building a church, after all, is about building relationships.

For the people of Nicaragua, it means a lot to see Americans roll up their sleeves, dirty their hands, walk the muddy streets, live in their homes, eat their food, then worship together at the end of the day using Nicaraguan rituals, songs and prayers. And for Americans, the expectation is to leave the place with a better grasp of what Third World poverty means, and hopefully assert the faith community’s role in influencing public policy. There is much we need to do to change the world’s perception of America . After 9/11, we used our wound to unleash retribution instead of understanding the wounds of others. Threatened, we lashed back, missing out on the opportunity for healing and reconciliation.

In one of our breakfasts together, I asked Leigh, a 14-year old member of our team, if her experience helped her understand better the immigration debate that’s driving many Americans into xenophobic frenzy. “Now I know why Hispanic immigrants take so much risks to come to America," she said. “There are no jobs here. But they’ll do anything and work hard to make sure their families survive." Leigh lives in Montgomery County where some residents are pressuring government officials to deny services to undocumented immigrants and do away with day centers where Hispanic laborers wait for construction jobs.

It rained all week in Ciudad Sandino. One afternoon, it poured so hard it reminded me of the heavy rainfalls in Mindanao during monsoon season. Suddenly, I saw Miguel take his shirt off and jump into the rain. I saw myself in that Nicaraguan boy as he pranced and danced, splashing wildly, savoring the moment. The boy in me wanted to play, so I plunged right in and joined Miguel. It felt like Magugpo, Magatos, Kabacan and Marawi all over again. If only for one brief shining (or wet) moment.

It’s good once in a while to step out of mainland USA, to leave the American movies in our mind and see what it feels like to be somewhere else and recall the way we were once upon a time when rain was all that there was, and to see God’s abundance and amazing grace in a different place among different faces through their leaps of faith and hymns of praise.

Twenty years ago, when the Sandinista’s returned power to the people after the oppressive years of the Somoza regime, Humberto Ortega - then the defense minister - was asked what he planned to do with his torturers and tormentors. Vengeance was the last thing in his mind. “I will teach their children to grow flowers,” he said. But those gardens never had a chance to bloom. Rains alone aren’t enough to make those flowers grow. Still, there’s much to learn from the people of Nicaragua. It was all there that night in the spirit of the faithful inside the Church of the Christian Miracle of Faith.

And it’s still there in the faces of the children. Whatever it was that moved him, Ortega certainly had faith in the Nicaraguan people to forgive and call for the healing of a broken nation. Coming back to Washington where everything seems driven by politics, I reflect on how our faith is driving politics. What does it take, I wonder, to teach our children to grow flowers? And love the rain.

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