It’s the summer of 2017, and my time as an intern for Amigos for Christ is hurtling to a close. These final days are bittersweet, full of lasts and sweeping declarations about how much this place means to us.
These are also days of questions, most notably: When will you be back?
There is one person who is unsatisfied with this answer: Ivette, who is my friend and has served as my leader throughout my internship. We have spent the summer together visiting communities, proofreading and translating each other’s work, crafting stories that tell of the amazing transformation taking place in Nicaragua.
“You’re going to be back here,” she tells me confidently one day in the comedor. “You’re going to work here.”
“Yeah?” I ask, nudging her shoulder with my own. “How do you know?” I’m about to enter my senior year of college and I have no idea what’s next. The future to me is this shadowy, mysterious thing, and Ivette’s certainty is like a flash of light.
“God told me,” she says, and she’s smiling but she’s serious. It startles a laugh out of me.
“Well, if God told you,” I say, trailing off. How do you respond to such a bold declaration of faith?
It’s the summer of 2023 and......
Ivette was right. I’m back in Nicaragua for a week of learning to prepare me for my new role with Amigos for Christ. My focus for this week is to be a sponge: to absorb as much information and wisdom and encouragement as I can from the Nicaraguan team so that I can support their work from our U.S. office. I’m thinking of Ivette’s promise to me six years ago as I join a group of promoters headed to El Pedregal on my first day of work.
The last time I was in El Pedregal was in 2017, when I joined the leadership team at one of their very first assemblies of the community. They had gathered the community to explain the clean water system they hoped to build in El Pedregal. The families I met that day were hopeful but uncertain about the project. In a story I wrote about that first visit, I quoted Baca’s encouragement: “This is your project, just as this is your community. We at Amigos for Christ are here to walk beside you as you work for a better future for your families.”
Reaping the harvest
Paul writes in Galatians, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” How do you respond to such a bold declaration of faith? How do we trust in the proper time when the future seems scary and unknowable?
