India

Joshua has applied to spend two months in New Delhi this summer working in an orphanage and in the city slums and leper colonies. (By the way, did you know that leprosy is now 100% curable? The WHO has a cocktail that clears it right up. Fun fact for the day.)

I will miss him a lot while he's away, but after spending a month in Nicaragua I could never not want him to have a similar experience. It completely changed my worldview. I think everyone should have an experience like it, especially when you are still single. I have a feeling Joshua and I will tie the knot one day-- and then we'll have many years to trek across the globe together. But there are some things you just have to do on your own. I hope that his application is accepted and that he gets to go. I just told him not to fall in love with a beautiful Indian girl.

I had no idea what to expect when I went to Nicaragua; when we arrived in Managua I had no clue that my heart and my mind would forever be changed about money, work, and God. I was exposed to malnourished children with distended bellies, and I saw people living in shacks with walls made out of trash bags, and I saw sick children and adolescents abandoned to a church's care because their parents had no other choice in their poverty. And it was shocking, and at times sickening, and it made me sad, but you know what? When I think about Nicaragua, all of that stuff is generally not what I will remember to tell you about. I will remember to tell you about people who laugh from their hearts, and open their arms to silly chelas from America. I will remember to tell you about pitch black skies with brilliant stars popping out in three dimensions at the edge of the Pacific ocean, and the sound of rain pounding on the tin roof of a mission house, and the feel of a cold shower on a sweltering night, and the sting of bug spray on shaved legs, and swimming without fear in the green waves off the shores of Corinto, and homemade plantains and chicken and rice and avocados from a woman who fed us just because she knew we were hungry, and learning to cook from women who didn't speak one word of English, and driving in the back of a camioneta in wind and rain in the dark of the night or the still of the dawn, and splashing around in a torrential rainstorm on the night of our goodbye party, and teaching English to people eager to learn so that they could somehow create a better future for the people they love.

My mind and heart were changed about money. Because in America our lives are lived for work and consumption, yet joy remains elusive. Yet there is so much joy in the heart of my Nica friend who may never even know the luxuries that I take for granted. And my mind and heart were changed about work, because the Nicaraguan people that I met viewed work as such a blessing and all of my excuses about possibly not being the best, or as good as someone else, seemed utterly ridiculous. I learned about simply making myself available and letting God worry about the rest. And my mind and heart were changed about God, because for the first time I was able to worship him and experience him outside of the context of my American culture, and I got a glimpse of just how big he really is.

If Josh makes it to New Delhi this summer, I don't know what awaits him. But I pray that it will be something that shakes his worldview and sends him back home with new insight to life.

And I also have to admit that I am a little jealous. But really what I want most of all is to return to Nicaragua and spend a few more nights in the coastal town of Corinto, so close to the ocean that you can hear the waves pounding the shore at night. And I want to sit around a table with my Nica friends, laughing and loving and sweating and... living.