Getting Your Heart Dirty

This week has been a challenge for sure. Yes, being Mr. Mom has given me a whole new appreciation for Mothers! Funny, I had to travel over a thousand miles, to another country to grasp the true value of Mothers! God Bless all of the Mother’s reading this blog…LET ME SAY IT AGAIN…GOD BLESS ALL OF THE MOTHER’S READING THIS BLOG! But a close second to understanding Mother’s a bit better has been finding out a little more about me and our world. What’s crazy is that I have been to Nicaragua a whole lot of times but each time I go I discover something new about this old body.

In the past two and half years, I think Lesa and I calculated that we have been here something like 60 or 70 days. While coming here to see Martita has always been one of the major goals, we are also fortunate enough to be part of teams that come from our Church (Dulles Community Church or DCC). To see people experience Nicaragua for the first time, the orphanage (Puente de Amistad), El Canyon (the community where the orphanage is located) and Managua is simply awesome! Each time I learn so much from the other team members…their perspectives and insight are invaluable.

People change when they get out of their comfort zone…out of their “box”. They get a different perspective on things when they come to Nicaragua or to another country for that matter. YES, we have issues in the United States…issues that we should all care about and try to help resolve. But something about getting outside the walls of the U.S. is different. You just see things that you cant and maybe don’t want to never see in the US And the crazy thing? “Outside our walls” is normal in the rest of the world. The vast majority of the world is more like Nicaragua NOT the worst parts of the United States. Okay, hang with me here…this is not a political rant, I promise.

What hit me this week is how hard it is WHEN you step out of your comfort zone. Yeah, just deciding to step out is hard…but once you get out there and get engaged in people’s lives, people that have needs, and lots of them, the intensity steps up in a big way. Case in point and I will keep the names anonymous.

For almost 3 years now, we have been going to Puente de Amistad. The sole purpose of going was NOT to build things or do “projects”. Our sole purpose was to go build relationships with kids that have been rejected their entire life. To show them complete and unconditional love…NOW THAT IS A RADICAL IDEA! What? You aren’t going to build a school, a road, or some outhouses? You aren’t going to get your hands dirty? DIRT. Try unconditionally loving someone especially a kid that you may never see again, or one who’s fate is to end up on the street begging or turning to prostitution. Or one who is told when they are 17 that they have to leave the orphanage because they are too old to have government provided assistance anymore. THAT creates a whole different kind of dirt. I call it getting your “heart” dirty.

There is a boy who “used to be” at the orphanage… THE model kid. Lesa and I have known him since we first started coming to Puente de Amistad. He is smart, extremely polite (He could be a mentor to any kid), engaging in conversation, and very spiritual…this kid is top notch. A couple of months ago he turned 17 and is now gone from the orphanage. Today he is on the streets of Managua begging while he tries to wash windshields at a busy intersection. Last week he called a friend of ours here in Managua and said “I am starving can you get me some food”. Okay, so you all may have many different thoughts and emotions running through your heads and hearts at this point…and I have heard them and had them all. I have heard everything from “hey, people that end up on the streets are innately lazy” or “they are just looking for government handouts”. This is one end of the spectrum. On the other end? “How can our God allow this to happen”. And you know what? I have the same questions and I don’t have the answer and probably never will. THIS is what happens when you get engaged, when you get your “heart dirty”…and it hurts bad. But I am not sure it’s an excuse not to get out there…out of your comfort zone and trying to do something. The story of the “perfect” kid is not over I am convinced of it. Yeah call it naïve hope but maybe that’s what we need to keep us going and trying. What I do know is that there was also a little girl in that same orphanage that came from a not so good life (probably an understatement). There were times in her life when I am sure the people around her asked the same hard questions about God. What no one could have possibly seen was the way her story continues to be written. Like the amount of unconditional love she has given a set of parents she really didnt know and who really don’t deserve it. The impact she has had on other total strangers many thousands of miles away…unconditionally. The future impact she might have on our country or her native country or world. I think it would have taken a lot of naïve hope for people to have predicted this about Martita.

Throughout this process Lesa and I have been asked some really tough questions. Are you doing this for your own self gratification, are your trying to impress people with your “foreign adoption” ( I guess Madonna and Angelina have made it en vogue?), do you think you win favor with God by doing this, don’t you know you can’t fix these kinds of problems and on and on. We have also been asked “when do you throw in the towel”…in fact we have been asked this multiple times given the lengthy process we continue to go through. After this week I will probably ask Lesa that question again!!!! Believe me, Lesa and I have asked ourselves ALL of these questions and done so multiple times! I think it really comes down to this simple fact. Regardless of your belief system…Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Atheist, etc., there is something inside all of us that drives us to help others in need. It is just the way we were created from the start. There are a lot of reasons we don’t act on this drive, but I am convinced it is in all of us.

The problem is getting engaged in someone else’s problems is messy…getting your “heart dirty” is not fun…in fact most of the time it can be downright heart breaking. But I am not sure, at least for me, that’s a valid excuse not to act. And by the way? When that one time rolls around and things work out? All of the dirt seems to get washed away and it all seems somehow worth it.

Maybe this is what we need to keep in mind when we venture out of our “comfort zone” and do something…anything to make a difference.

Again “Wuz up in Nica Lesa” readers…it has been a blast sharing with you the ups and downs of Nica this week. Lesa will be back and hopefully just a little rejuvenated next week blogging her heart out. I really don’t know what I would do without her…she is an amazing woman and one that I am proud to call the absolute love of my life. Adios mi amigos! Te Amo! (did I say that right?)