A Mission Life

The truck didn’t have air conditioner, but I didn’t mind one bit. In fact, I love driving through Nicaraguan countryside with all the windows rolled down and the fresh breeze swirling through the cab and the music of the gusts making us talk in louder-than-normal voices.  

As we travelled north into the mountains, the wind through my hair felt less like the hot humidity of Managua and more like the cool freshness of Jinotega. As we turned the corner and glimpsed Jinotega in the valley in the distance, my heart started to beat faster, throbbing with anticipation and pure delight. Something about the air smelled familiar, felt right. Something about the way my heart beat made me feel like I was coming alive, like I was entering a homeland, like I was returning to the pieces of my heart.

Nicaragua has been a spiritual sanctuary for me. It was during my first mission trip to Jinotega, Nicaragua, that I discovered how much I love mission work. It was then that I became fascinated with foreign culture and the universality of the gospel, which extends to every nation, culture, language, and people. It was during my internships in Nicaragua over the past two summers that God whispered to my heart a direct call to mission work, a call that would consume my entire life. It was there that He showed me personally and passionately how vast His love is, how far it reaches, and how close it is to my own heart. He showed me what His love looks like. 

Through my time in Nicaragua, he has taught me what it means to be a missionary and how to wake up every day with the sole purpose of loving and serving His people in the name of Jesus. My spiritual journey is marked by milestones placed in Nicaragua. This is why I keep coming back. This is why the air smells homelike and the wind whispers adventure and the mountains speak, “This is right.”

Yet at the same time, nothing is extra special about Nicaragua. God doesn’t work there any more than He works anywhere else in the world. Jinotega is not His favorite. He is the Lord of all nations, the king of every tribe and tongue. His heart is for the entire world and for every soul in it, no matter the color or race or age or location. No, there is nothing extra special about Nicaragua, but there is something extra special about the God who chooses to invest and intervene in the lives of His people. He is the one that makes this place beautiful.

Whenever I come to Nicaragua, I come with a mission - a mission to see Jesus and be His hands and feet in everything I say and do. I wake up every morning with eyes wide open to look for Him, and because of that openness I experience Him in ways that I have never experienced before. I say, “God is here!” because He is...but He is also everywhere. Omnipresent. We just need to open our eyes, our hearts, our hands. He is a visible God.

I long to wake up every day with that perspective, with eyes wide open to see Him and follow Him with everything that I am. I want to spring out of bed with the joy and energy I feel in Nicaragua, knowing that God will show up in my world today when I open my eyes to see Him and trusting that He will cultivate pure delight in serving Him and loving Him wholeheartedly, even in the mundane tasks of everyday life.

I don’t want to go on a mission trip. I want to live a mission life.

I thank God for Nicaragua and the place of spiritual significance it has become for me. Everywhere I go in Nicaragua, I am reminded of spiritual mile markers - remembrance stones standing tall - representing  my relationship with the Lord.  I am eternally grateful for what God has shown me, taught me, and whispered to my searching heart while in Jinotega; therefore, that place will forever hold a treasured place in my heart. It will always be a part of who I am.

So as the wind blows and I smell the air and taste the breeze, as I see the mountains and feel the warmth swelling within my heart until it is about to explode with joy, as I say to myself, “This feels right,” I know that it is not Nicaragua I am feeling, it is the Lord.