"Nicaragua Always Wins"

That's what she told me this afternoon as she sat on the floor of her room packing up her 10, gallon-size ziploc bags. It is her 3rd mission trip to Nicaragua and she's learned how to pack economically--they only carry a backpack and 1 other carry-on. I was asking her about everyone who is going--some of the "first-timers"--wondering how they would do. She shrugged her shoulders and said, "Well, I don't know, but Nicaragua always wins. They can do what they want but they'll learn--Nicaragua always wins." She continued with her packing, I got up to finish making dinner--I didn't ask her what she meant--what that phrase meant, where she'd first heard it. But now as the night wears on, dinner is over and she is laughing and talking with her sister and a friend who's come to say good-bye--I can't stop thinking about what it means "Nicaragua always wins"--what do they see, what do they experience--that they've never seen before? Another friend tells about his first visit to the orphanages around Managua that these students visit--he tells about how it "wrecked" him, shook him up, turned him upside down and inside out--he saw the "least of these"--the ones Jesus talks about and now he sees everything differently--"Nicaragua always wins". This is not an easy mission trip--it is steamy hot, they often do physical work in the steamy heat, the food is different, the lodging barebones--but of the 51 seniors on this trip, many are going for the 3rd time--as hard as it is--they can't wait to get back. Nicaragua always wins...