December 1, 2003

Dear Friends,

The other day a friend told me that her house had been broken into. She and her husband had gone to an overnight retreat, confident that the 24-hour street security service and the upscale, quiet neighborhood they lived in granted them relative protection from intruders. When they arrived home from the retreat they found their house had been turned upside down. An interior door that had been locked was kicked in, all their belongings were poured out all over the floor, and their most valuable possessions, a laptop computer and a box of jewelry, had been taken.

When I spoke with my friend, I saw that more than the material things that had been taken. She had been robbed of a basic sense of trust, not sure if a neighbor or someone else close to them had been the culprit. She had been robbed of a fundamental sense of security.

As we walked through her neighborhood the day after the break-in, processing what had happened, we talked about how hard it is to sense God’s grace in tragedies, suffering, and loss. I shared with her my own sense of helplessness and spiritual frustration on living in Nicaragua, witnessing hardship and misery daily. The armor of my faith, my own sense of God’s call for a just world on earth, has been worn down. The impetus to create a reign of peace on earth, I find, is not enough to bring me sustenance. My rigid sense of what is just and what is not, and my righteous indignation when bad things happen to “good” people, is taking a toll on the peace of my spirit.

During this time of Advent I reflect on what the birth of Jesus—Emmanuel, God-is-with-us—really means. What surprises are in store for me in my life, what hidden gifts are in the most unexpected places—in a stinky barn under a starry sky; in the tension of a comfortable life amidst friends in poverty in the poorest country in the western hemisphere? What does God have in store for me? What does God have in store for you? What gifts are under the surface, around the corner, hidden in human misery and death? Likewise, what gifts do I bring to the Christ child, born in difficult conditions to humble parents?

I have been living in Nicaragua for six full years now. I have talked with other foreigners who have been here from as little as a month to as long as 15 years about why we are here. We chew on the question, let it roll around in our mouths, taste it. We meditate on the question for a moment: Why are we here? Why am I living in Nicaragua? Others ask me bluntly, “How can you live in Nicaragua? How do you do it?” I can’t say I have a clear answer. But I can say with certainty that one gift that living in Nicaragua has given me is intensity of life (as though I needed more)!

This same friend who was robbed of her material things and her trust recently said that during the retreat she and others spoke about the “brutality” of living in Nicaragua. I tell people who visit Nicaragua on a short-term delegation that we must remember Nicaragua is a mirror of the world reality. I am sure that I have said this in past newsletters, but it is worth repeating. The brutality of life, the intensity of life as I live it here should be the same intensity that I experience, feel, and witness in the United States or anywhere else. I don’t want to lose that intensity. But as I continue my journey here in Nicaragua, after six years of intensity, of natural disasters and human treatable illnesses compounded by poverty, of national government corruption, of cultural clashes, I know in my heart that I have to give in to God’s grace.

My fight for justice will continue; I still believe that God calls us to work for the reign of God on earth. But I cannot fight this fight without God’s grace and the knowledge that all things are far beyond my own understanding. I cannot “fix” everything and everyone. And when I struggle for justice without God’s grace, I am totally powerless. I don’t know if all the bad things in the world are part of a divine plan. Right now I cannot say that world hunger and war are part of God’s plan for humanity. That is hard for me to swallow. But I must believe that from the bad things good things can come—that God’s grace is present in all things that happen, and that God walks with us always—and is most accessible to us when we are down-and-out. As the saying in Spanish goes,“No hay mal que por bien no venga.” There is nothing bad from which good things don’t come.

I am striving during Advent, during this time of pregnant wonder, to start relinquishing my own desperate frustration at the state of the world, at the difficult things in my life, and let God’s grace breathe into the sense of faithless indifference and helplessness that I sometimes feel. I am aiming to thank God for all things as a deliberate and joyful act of liberation, without letting go of God’s call to justice here and now.

May you discover God’s gifts for you in unexpected ways, and so discover the gifts you have to offer to God.

In Expectation,

Ellen Sherby

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 254