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In Katie's Words

From a female perspective... the idea of going to Nicaragua was frightening. I had never been to a country like it before, and didn’t know what to expect. However, I knew that going on this mission trip was something that I had to do and had to experience. From the very inception of the trip, I felt, in a way, drawn to Nicaragua, and especially the idea of working with disabled children. Since my younger sister is autistic, I hoped that my personal experiences could benefit the group, and also enhance my own understanding of myself. Certainly, I came to know myself, and God, in a way I didn’t think possible.

 

 

From the moment I stepped off the plane in Managua, my expectations of what I was going to experience vanished. Once we boarded the bus with our piles of luggage and set off to Hogar Belen, I knew that I was in a very different world. The piles of garbage along the side of the road, the buildings, the smell, it was all so different. The small amount of anxiety that I had experienced prior to the trip was building as I thought of meeting the children. Would they like me? Could they understand me? I didn’t speak any Spanish.

 

As we drove up to Hogar Belen for the first time, and saw some of the children peering through the fence at us, again I was surprised at how God can surprise us in our lives. The children came to us instantly; they looked so overjoyed to see us. From my first encounters with the children, I never stopped loving them. I saw God in each and every one of those beautiful children. It was in the way they laughed and smiled constantly, even though they had nothing materially. They were so joyful all the time, and one of the most amazing things was, they knew. Despite their disabilities, they knew the presence of God in their lives. One of the boys, Brayan, who was deaf and mute, showed me the very first night we were there the Eucharist they kept in the chapel. As he put his hands together in a praying position to show me what it was, I was amazed at how this little boy who couldn’t hear or speak could know so absolutely that God was in his life. It was in the little things that I saw God working in my life through the children. When Amillkar, one little boy who was very special to me, said, “Mama” to me for the first time, I was so overjoyed. I knew what Father Matt had meant when he said we needed the children more than they needed us.

 

God gave us challenges that week, whether it was struggling to dig a six foot deep hole in the brutal Nicaraguan sun, or trying to understand the most upsetting yet eye-opening part of our trip, La Chureca. A garbage dump that houses more than 1500 people in a community built of small shacks on a mountain of garbage. I had never seen such poverty. Yet they had schools, and a health clinic, and churches. Even in the one place where it would seem impossible to find God, they found him, and I saw him in every one of the children I met at the garbage dump.

 

Throughout that week I saw God in many different ways and also saw myself in new ways. Ultimately, the theme of the week became “it’s for the children.” Because that’s what this trip came to mean to me; a smile or a hug, singing and clapping. It was truly all about the children, children that I will never forget and hope to see again in the near future. They are very special children in my eyes and in the eyes of God, for if God could protect them by bringing them to Mustard Seed, and help me by bringing them into my life, then he is a very loving God, indeed.

 

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