A letter from Ellen Sherby in Nicaragua
November 25, 2008
Dear Friends,
Eleven years ago this month I stepped off a plane into the over-crowded, humid Managua airport with the expectation of staying in Nicaragua for two years. This November, as Nicaraguan’s hurricane season gives way to the dry season, my family and I prepare to move into a new season of our lives. On December 8 we will step onto a plane with one-way tickets to Louisville, Kentucky.
Here, my work has been linking people of the church in the north with church people and CEPAD in Nicaragua. Now, my job (with the “Equipping the Church for Mission Involvement” office of PC(USA)’s World Mission area) will be helping Presbyterian church folk see God’s mission as expressed through different faces of the church—and connecting pieces of the church’s mission to one another.
When my mind drifts back over the last eleven years, I remember faces, places, and experiences. Here are a few images and memories of Nicaragua:
- Sitting on the veranda of a home in a rural village, the inky black night lit up in sudden spurts by lightening from a monumental thunderstorm, talking with my Nicaraguan hosts and sucking on mamones.
- Ricardo is an older man who sits outside the nearby mini-supermarket and asks for handouts. When I gave him a few rolls recently, he happily walked over to a nearby parking-lot to share one with a lottery-ticket seller.
- Visiting the holy ground of Posoltega three weeks after Hurricane Mitch caused a mudslide that traveled at 60 miles an hour and wiped out two whole villages, burying more than 2,500 people alive.
- Driving into the green mountains in a bouncy pickup, listening to the war stories of Nicaraguan colleagues who participated in the coffee brigades and the literacy crusade of the revolution in the early 1980s.
- Watching my sons play on the street in front of our house with so many neighbor children: hide-and-go-seek; rock, paper, scissors; mother, may I?—their laughter mixing with clouds of fine dirt kicked up by running feet and the onset of cricket song as the night falls all at once.
- The sounds of night security guards blowing their whistles like a strange, tropical bird; the sound of geckos chirping as they zig-zag across the wall or ceiling.
- Accepting warm hospitality of salt-of-the-earth Nicaraguan folk, engaging in conversation, sharing table—fresh tortillas, soft fresh cuajada cheese, fresh-cooked small red beans, fried plantains.
- Knowing people who live on green mangos or a tortilla with lime and salt to calm their hunger; seeing children with the tell-tale straw-blonde hair and bloated bellies of chronic malnutrition.
- Witnessing the transformation in a man from the United States during his first visit to Nicaragua. A know-it-all, he thought he could get the work done better and faster without the help of kids from the barrio where we were building a church. By the end of the week, he humbly states, “Now I know it is about building relationships, not buildings.”
- Singing songs of hope and commitment in the church in Hialeah, a circle of people working out our faith, struggling to live, sharing ideas. At the same time, neighborhood “lost boys” playing a soccer game under a huge tree in the community space facing the church, their shouts punctuating our worship.
Like the wise men sought the Christ child by following a bright star, so my family and I will be trying to keep our eyes and hearts on God to “find our way” as we move to Louisville. There will be new sights, new sounds, new relationships, new experiences, and moments to treasure. I trust that God will be our northern star, guiding us when we feel lost. But you, my friends, are our stars, too. Thank you for your prayers and support over the years. Just as these visions of Nicaragua are vivid, so are the times we have spent in your churches and your homes.
This is an exciting time in the church’s life as we strive to find a way to work together in mission in ways that bring us together – many “stars” of one body in Christ, a single constellation. My own sense of call to this new position, and my wonder at what God is doing as we grapple with how to go about engaging in mission, are feelings that lift me up when I wonder why I am leaving Nicaragua, this place that has shaped me into adulthood.
I invite you to continue supporting CEPAD in Nicaragua, current mission co-workers Doug Orbaker and Tracey King, and future mission co-worker(s) who will be filling the position I leave behind.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 43:19a
God is doing a “new thing” in my life, in our lives. Please, come with us on this new mission to the United States!
With hope,
Ellen
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 263
