For some reason – this didn’t post when we were in Nicaragua a few weeks ago….oh the internet. But here it is a bit late. If you want to check out more postings from Nicaragua from me and the students, check out http://www.wuwesley.wordpress.com!
Winthrop Wesley is in Nicaragua for the week working at the Center for Development in Central America with the Jubilee House Community. Although I’m not someone who loves plane flights or the actual travel side of the equation, this is one of my favorite places in the world. I love the people and the countryside and being here with a group of students discovering and learning and growing.
When we arrived one of the JHC folks, Kathy, asked me what I was most looking forward to, and I didn’t have an answer. It’s hard to say. I enjoy the touring stuff we do like the laguna and seeing Pedro through amazingly beautiful pottery and hearing about Managua in the midst of earthquakes and hurricanes and the Contra war. But one of my favorite things is just being here in the midst of this intentional community where very different people seek to live in community, in fellowship, in life with one another. It’s an amazing thing to witness their commitment with the poor and the ways they help make things that seem impossible, happen.
Mike (my husband) told Mike (member of JHC) that he thought he was full of it when he said they were going to create the first ever fair trade organic cotton production line from the ground to the gin to the spinning plant to the sewing cooperative. Fair trade made up cooperatives and organic. And they’ve done it. It’s just very cool to see the work of JHC.
We may all be a little hot, a little dirty, and a little worse for wear at times, but it’s a gift to see the students step up and come together in this place. Watching them learn and grow and be challenged and enjoy this trip is such a beautiful thing.
So this week I may or may not be writing on this blog very much but we’re trying to post daily on the Winthrop Wesley blog – wuwesley.wordpress.com.
As always with these trips I know that I’m going to get much more out of this than I’ll ever be able to give back, but there’s no amount of money or clothes or things that I could give or receive that would ever outweigh the treasure of meeting people, knowing people, dialoguing with people, growing as a community across boundaries. These are holy moments.
If you want to read more about the work of JHC, go here www.jhc-cdca.org/.
Blessings on the Journey 