It was 20 years ago that I took my first trip to Nicaragua with the organization Bridges to Community. That winter we lived and worked in the community of Bilwi helping with the construction of a community center. Since that first trip 20 years ago, I have been in Nicaragua at least one time each year. At 4:15 tomorrow morning the group of us from Bedford Presbyterian who are going on this year’s trip will meet at the church, pile into cars and vans and head to the airport for this year’s trip.
These trips humble me.
For a few minutes I see the world as most of the world really is and not as it looks out my front door. These trips also teach me what gratitude looks likes and feels like. And, I am forced to make my neighborhood a bit larger and more inclusive. For all those things I am deeply grateful. I cannot imagine what my life world be like if I did not have these experiences.
And, because of these trips I understand the Bible in ways I never did before. The people with whom Jesus lived and to whom he spoke lived in situations and conditions much more like Las Conchitas or Nindiri, Nicaragua than Bedford, NY. Jesus saying, “In my father’s house there are many rooms…” (John 14) sounds very different to those who live in a one room house made of scraps of wood and metal and only dirt for a floor than to those of us who already live in homes with many rooms. And, when Jesus talks about a grand banquet (Luke 14 and elsewhere), that sounds very different to those who only have one, maybe two meals a day, consisting primarily of rice and beans than it does to those of us who have a banquet each day. These trips and the relationships I have made and what I have experienced and learned has deepened my faith and has helped me to see the world as God must see the world.
So, we leave tomorrow.
45 of us.
We will help build homes for four families.
And, just as important
We will learn something about ourselves and about the world and its people which God has entrusted to our care and keeping.
John Flynn says
February 16, 2018 at 9:52 pm‘Someone asked the other day, ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’ ‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’ I informed him. ‘All the food was slow.’
‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’ ‘It was a place called ‘at home’,” I explained. ‘Mom or Grandma cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn’t like what was put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.”
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.
I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
We didn’t have a television in our house until I was in Elementary school. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 am and there was usually a locally produced new and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called ‘pizza pie.’ When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It’s still the best pizza I ever had.
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home but milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers–my brother delivered a news paper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother’s house and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to ‘sprinkle’ clothes with because we didn’t have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember?
Auto head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.
1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with table side jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines on the telephone
8 Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels…[if you were fortunate])
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H green stamps
16. Hi-fi’s
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You’re still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don’t tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You’ re older than dirt!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Don’t forget to pass this along! Especially to all of your really OLD friends!