June 28, 2006

Dear Friends:

Greetings from Managua, where the afternoon rains pummel the pavement, sending hot steam into the air.

Most of you already know that the organization to which I am assigned as a Mission Co-Worker is the Council of Protestant Churches of Nicaragua (CEPAD). But did you know that CEPAD serves as the host organization for the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)? Blanca Fonseca, a lawyer and the only staff person in Nicaragua for the UN refugee program, works out of a small room within CEPAD’s central offices. Blanca works tirelessly to attend to the more than thirty persons who have entered Nicaragua this year alone, and over three hundred people who are now Nicaraguan residents (or citizens), who already passed through the UNHCR office and occasionally need a helping hand.

Recently, Blanca called my office and said, “Ellen, could you please come downstairs for five minutes?” I said, “Sure.” Blanca speaks only Spanish, and she had some refugees in her office that needed English translation.

Out of these “five minutes” I met two refugees from Eritrea, a country in east Africa, whom I will call Simon and Benjamin. Benjamin is about my age—early thirties, with a wife and young daughter back home. Simon is younger, about twenty. Both men are Protestant Christians—a minority in Eritrea (as also in Nicaragua). Both fled Eritrea for political (and probably religious) motives, and say they wish to return some day, when the current government administration is out of the picture. Benjamin is constantly asking questions and seems to come to quick conclusions about the world around him. Simon is quieter, seems to have a broader world view, and often serves as Benjamin’s interpreter.

One of the things that I have observed about Benjamin and Simon is how they experience their Christian faith. It has been interesting for me to see that while Benjamin is rather effusive and shows outward signs of faith (like kneeling to pray, and eagerness to attend church services), Simon is more introverted. One day, Benjamin chided Simon for not going to an English-only service where, I explained, there would be only white people attending. Yet Simon’s faith has been apparent in other ways, as he quietly thumbed through his Bible one afternoon at our house, or explained to me with a tone of deep conviction that while he feels very close to God and knows that God is constantly looking out for him, he feels he has a long way to go to be the person God wants him to be.

One day, Simon told our family about their trek by boat from a Caribbean island off the coast of South America to an island off the coast of Nicaragua. “The boat ride was supposed to take four hours, but it took eighteen, and the waves were very high and choppy, and there were sharks around the boat. This,” Simon emphasized, “is why I know that God is always protecting me.” The “broker” who had charged Benjamin and Simon a pretty penny to get them all the way to Mexico sold them short and abandoned them on the Nicaraguan island. “We spent four days hiding in the tall grass near the shore,” Benjamin added to the story. At some point, they were found out by Nicaraguan officials and brought to the central immigration offices in Managua.

To me, there is a degree of irony that a person seeking refuge—albeit mostly for political reasons—would find himself in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, where most people are unemployed. Yet I also feel that there must be a reason for them being here. In my heart of hearts, I am a Christian but also a mystic. I believe in God’s divine intervention, in things happening for a reason, in serendipity.

What purpose could God have for Benjamin and Simon in Nicaragua? It is impossible for any person to know, but I can say that for me and my family, knowing Benjamin and Simon has been a true blessing, affording us the opportunity to learn new things—for our five-year-old son Galen, learning that real giraffes live in Eritrea, and for me, learning that Eritrea was an Italian colony. Simon cooked a delicious spaghetti dinner for us one evening, bearing testimony to Eritrea’s Italian influence.

The “five minutes” that Blanca asked me to give her a couple of weeks ago turned into genuine friendships with Simon and Benjamin, and gave me the chance to step outside of my Latin America/North America “box” to get a glimpse into another place, another world. I almost declined Blanca’s original plea for “five minutes”—I had another commitment that I couldn’t miss that morning. I could have limited myself to a little bit of translation, picked up my bags and left. But I allowed myself to get more involved, and herein lay the blessing.

May God give us the grace to know how to manage our time, when to set healthy limits—and say “no”—and when we are called to step over the line and take some time to do things that are not part of our job description.

In Christ’s love,

Ellen

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 57