A letter from Doug Orbaker in Nicaragua
September 2010
Where Does Reconciliation Happen?
Former enemies often work together now in Nicaragua.
Several years ago, when I was pastor of a church in northern Pennsylvania, I copied in the Sunday morning bulletin an article about the meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches that had taken place in Debrecen, Hungary. The article included a photo of the huge Hungarian Reformed Cathedral where the worship for this meeting took place. After worship, Eugene (who had come to the United States as a displaced refugee after World War II) came up with the photo and said, “That is the church where Catherine and I were married.” We talked for a moment about that, and he went away.
A moment later, Joe, a World War II vet came up with the same photo. He said, “We bombed the h--- out of that city one night. I think this church was the only major building we didn’t destroy.” We talked for a moment, and then he said, “I think I need to talk to Gene.” The two were still talking when I left the church that day.
I was reminded of this event not long ago in the little community of Filas Grandes in Nicaragua. Filas Grandes had built a water system. They had tapped a spring higher up in the mountains, run the water to a tank and then a single pipe down the one road in the community with a faucet in front of every house. The system worked well for several years, until an earthquake closed off the spring and made another outlet about 50 feet away. I was in the community with a group helping to recapture that spring at its new outlet. The local Community Development Committee (CDC) had planned the project and hired a local builder to direct the work.
After dinner one evening during our visit I was talking to the chairperson of the local CDC and the builder/foreman. The foreman said, “I was in the United States once.” I know that there are a lot of Nicaraguans in the United States and I didn’t want to push too much about the legality of his papers, but he continued, “I received training in North Carolina when I was in the Army of the Resistance.” (The “Army of the Resistance” was better known in the United States as the “Contra.”)
The Chair of the local CDC then said, “Yes, I was in the army too.” But the way they looked at each other made me ask the next question, “On the same side?” The answer was frank: “No, we tried to kill each other.”
Their units had fought in some of the same battles! Each of them had lost friends in those battles. Yet, here they were, working together in the mud and the concrete to rebuild the vitally needed water system for their community.
At about the same time the government of Nicaragua was proclaiming itself to be “The Government of Peace and National Reconciliation.” There were big banners across some of the main streets proclaiming this.
I don’t believe that God’s reconciling love will ever be made real by a slogan on any banner across any street. Whether in Pennsylvania or in Nicaragua, that kind of reconciliation will only be made real in actions. Reconciliation may be made real when a former gunner on an Air Force bomber sits down with someone whose home city was destroyed; when they worship together and work together. Reconciliation may be made real when former enemies who tried to kill each other work together in the mud and the concrete to make their lives and the lives of other people in their community better. God’s reconciling love isn’t made real in words, no matter how loudly or how often they are proclaimed. That reconciling love is made real in the actions of human beings whose lives have been touched and changed.
Eugene and Joe have both passed away in the years since that time. At least that one wound from World War II was finally healed. Filas Grandes now has a working water system, and in the process at least one wound from the Contra War has been healed. But there are millions of other such wounds that still fester in the hearts of those who are the victims of war, both the armed victims and the unarmed. And yet, every day, our world continues to make thousands of fresh wounds of war, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and in many smaller, less-known places.
It has been wonderful to watch the small steps toward healing these wounds of war that I've seen both in Pennsylvania and in Nicaragua. How much more wonderful it would be to see people begin to live out that reconciling love of God even before the wounds become so deep. How much more wonderful it would be to live in peace instead of in the fear that makes these wounds.
My prayer is that God’s reconciling love may happen this way, both in Nicaragua and in the United States.
Doug
The 2010 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 282
