Tag: Nicaragua

Nicaragua 2018

From Saturday, February 17 – Saturday, February 24, I was in Nicaragua with a group of 45 other people. We lived and worked in two different communities and helped to build homes for four families. This morning, several of us shared our reflections about the trip. Here is what I wrote.

In addition to the cement and the cement blocks.
And the sand and the gravel.
And the outhouses and the bucket showers.
Each evening we gathered for a reflection or program.
Dinner with the masons and their families.
Program with the scholarship students.
A conversation within our community groups about how we were doing and what we were experiencing and learning.

Towards the end of our week in Las Conchitas something was said which caused me to remember an experience I had in 2001. That year was the first time a group from Bedford Presbyterian lived and worked in Las Conchitas. We built a church that year. And in the neighboring community of Pilas Orientales we built two homes.

One day after work and before dinner, I walked through the community of Las Conchitas with Mark Rollins who was one of the adults on the trip and also on the Session/Governing Board of the church. He held the position Dave Keeffe holds today. As we walked down the pathways off the main street and between the houses he shared with me that several people had approached him asking why we were spending time and money doing trips like this. He said one of the people had said to him,
“Who does Alcorn think he is? Is he just a do-gooder?” My immediate response was, “What am I supposed to be? A do-badder.”

As I shared that story with our group I ended by encouraging them to look around and to see what was there and who was there and what was needed. And, to do good.

I would say the same thing to you.

Youth and adults from BPC have been going on trips with Bridges to Community since 1996. Each year at least one of the trip participants (and often more than one) says to me at the end of the trip, “This week has changed my life.” I understand what they mean. My experiences building homes and churches and community centers in Nicaragua and living with and working with the Nicaraguan people has changed my life as well. I see the world differently today than before my first trip. I see my life differently today since our trip a couple weeks ago. While I learn something new about myself each year, there is one constant. And that is I am humbled by the gratitude and grace and openness of the families with whom we work to build a home. And, I come home doing my best to figure out how to nurture that same depth of gratitude and grace and openness in my own life. Right here. Right now.

And, if you are interested, here is a video about our trip.

Nicaragua 2018

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.

Snapshots

I am home again.
Back from a week living and working in Nicaragua with a group of high school students and adults from Bedford Presbyterian Church and Temple Shaaray Tefila. All in all, there were 57 of us divided among three communities, helping to build homes for six families.

I asked Don Santos how long he had been hoping for the home we were helping to build for he and his wife. “Four years.” he said. I replied, “I think you have been working and hoping for a house like this for most of your life.” He looked at me. Was quiet for a moment. Then, shook his head “yes.” Don Santos is a year younger than I am. The home he will be moving into this week will be the first home he has ever lived in with a real floor and not just packed dirt.

Here are several snapshots from the week.
Memories I will do my best to hold onto.

Rose Argentina, who is in her 60’s talking with us about her family and her life growing up in El Campuzano.
Juan Carlos, one of the community leaders, saying thank you to our group with tears in his eyes.
The Director of the local school telling us that because of the increase number of students one classroom has 60 students in it. 30 students don’t have desks so they have to stand all day.
The hard work of the high school students who were with me who mixed cement and carried blocks and played with children, and who never once complained.
The intensity and focus of a young woman who is in her first year at the university who had dinner with us one night and shared her dreams with us of becoming an accountant.
The skill and leadership of the young man who is now an International Volunteer Coordinator with Bridges to Community. A young man whom I have known for most of his life.
The gratitude of the families who will be moving into their new homes. Gratitude which both fills my heart and brings me to my knees.

There is, of course, more.
So much more.
Thank you to all who shared the week with me.

Saturday

Early Saturday morning I leave for Nicaragua.
With me will be a group of high school students and adults.
58 of us in all.
We will spend the week helping to build homes for six families.
As important as that is and it is life changing for those families, what is equally if not more important, is this. We will begin to look at and to see the world with new eyes.
We will see poverty.
We will experience resilience and hope.
We will stand face to face with gratitude.
And, somewhere in the midst of all that, our lives will change.
No longer will the world look solely like Westchester County, NY.

As a part of our reflection during the week will be this quote from Frederick Buechner.
“If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say, like artists, we must see not just their faces, but the life behind and within their faces.”

Even those who do not identify as Christian know the story Jesus told of The Good Samaritan. The stranger/the outsider who stopped to help the person in distress. Jesus told that story in response to the question “Who is my neighbor?” For sometime I have considered that question and how we answer it to be the most critical religious question of the day.
Who is your neighbor?
Those who live near you?
Those who look like you?
Those who speak the same language as you?
Those whose religious practices match yours?
None of those are true in the story Jesus told.

Saturday I leave for Nicaragua.
My hope for myself and for those who go with me is how we answer that question will change and our neighborhood will become a bit larger.

*The picture is of Rosa Flores, her husband Santos and three of their grandchildren. We will build a new home for them next week.

New Ways of Thinking

My memory tells me it was the community organizer, Saul Alinsky, who asked: “Do you think your way to new ways of acting or act your way to new ways of thinking?”
On one hand the answer is “Yes.”
There are times when you think your way to new ways of acting.
But, more often than not, I think you act your way to new ways of thinking.
You suddenly find yourself, either by choice or by chance, in a new situation or circumstance which is so impactful that, when you step back from it or find your way through it, you discover you have to rethink how you understand your own life, the lives of others and/or the larger communities in which you live. Such moments are unsettling, at best, if not outright scary for they often challenge long held assumptions and force us to reexamine deeply held values and beliefs.

I find myself thinking about this because tomorrow morning a group of high school students who just returned from spending a week with me in Nicaragua building homes for six families will reflect on their experience. Their reflections will range from funny stories to poignant moments. Yet, all who went took the risk of stepping into a new situation and because of that given the opportunity to think about life and world and faith in new ways. Their neighborhoods became a bit bigger and their world became a bit smaller which is wonderful and challenging all at the same time.

As I think about it, on many levels, we are grappling with new experiences
Changing demographics.
Changing understanding of sexual identity.
Changing relationship to the global community.
Changing understanding of family.
And because of that long held assumptions are being challenged and deeply held values and beliefs are being called into question.
All of which is tremendously unsettling.
We are in the middle of the experience.
Our thinking/understanding is trying to catch up.

Home Again

I spent the last week with 20 other people in Campuzano.
A small community just outside Nindiri, Nicaragua.
We travel to Nicaragua in partnership with Bridges to Community and with a local Reformed Jewish congregation. There were 65 of us all together. Mostly high school students with a handful of adults thrown in. As we have done in the past, we spent the week building homes with and for two families in that community.
Now I am back home.
Back at my desk.
Responding to email.
Answering the phone.
Getting over a cold and getting ready for the responsibilities and meetings of the coming week.

One evening while we were there, after mixing cement all day, our evening reflection was a conversation about the values behind why we do what we do. Why do two congregations – one Christian and one Jewish – commit time and energy and resources to support these trips? The springboard for our conversation was several passages from Hebrew and Christian scripture and the Jewish concept of healing the world. It is that idea I found myself thinking about for most of the rest of the week. It is easy to see how building a cement block home with a tile floor and a roof that does not leak adds to healing the world, but what I found myself thinking about the most is what part of me is broken and what part of the culture in which I live is broken and how those Nicaraguans with whom I lived and worked for the week helped to heal me. While I am still working on that question, one thing I did realize is that if our understanding of healing it is only a one way street – my going there to fix/heal them – then I have missed the mark and missed the graciousness and grace and healing which they offer to me.

I am back home, again.
Tired, but a bit more whole.

Tags

Several things I believe: