Today is March 13th, which means I've been living in Nicaragua for ten days now. The last few days Í've really been wanting to write, but have been wrestling back and forth with what to write about! I finally landed on a title/theme God put on my heart a couple days ago and taught me a lot about back when I was support raising.
A few nights ago as I finished eating dinner, I asked Abuela Adília, the main woman hosting me right now, if she would like to see some pictures of my family and friends. She said yes, so I ran and grabbed my two Walgreens packs of pictures from my room. I brought them out to the living room, and we sat down in two of the many rocking chairs in our home.
For maybe an hour or so, we sat together and poured through photos of my parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, boyfriend, etc. After thirty minutes or so, I figured she may be getting bored with them.
I was wrong.
We continued going though them for a little while, and when I thought she was finally done with them, I reached to take them from her lap.
She still wasn't done.
Instead of rushing through my pictures ready to get to bed or move onto the ''next thing,'' she was sharing in cherishing pictures, or rather memories, of the people nearest and dearest to me. There's a word in Spanish--recuerdos--that translates to something along the lines of ''memories'' or ''mementos/keepsakes.'' In that moment, Abuela was not just looking at physical photos of people. Rather, she was entering into a sacred space of not just my life, but my heart. She told me my mom is beautiful, that my boyfriend has a nice smile, that my sobrino is cute... I shared with her about some special traditions, such as spending the night at my grandparents' house playing cards.
As we sat there together, her attention fully devoted to learning about the people I love, I was reminded of something. I was reminded of our most precious resource, our most precious gift. It's not money, or our abilities, or our skills, or our possessions... No, our most precious resource and our most precious gift, is our time.
I could write a whole separate piece on hospitality in Central America and what that is teaching me, and maybe I will next time, but for now I want to leave you with this last thought.
The home I am staying in, as well as the home where I eat lunch each day, has an abundance of rocking chairs. (I've never seen so many in one place in my whole life, except maybe at Cracker Barrel!) The first few days and even now to a certain extent, I have found myself questioning why in the world people would need so many rocking chairs! However, I am learning that in many homes/families here, they do something really scandalous... They sit in the rocking chairs and...spend time with one another! It seems so often at home, our living rooms and dining rooms are spaces and places for passing through, for transitioning from one task to the next. Here though, living rooms and dining rooms are sacred spaces to just be together. Not look at the clock, not hurry up to accomplish your next task, but just enjoy one another's presence--to give and receive of our most precious resource and our most precious gift, time.