Re-entry.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      4 comments      link this post     


Last night, after landing at the Fargo airport around 8 p.m., I finally realized at last that another trip to Nicaragua was over. Re-entry into my "usual" life has gotten a bit easier with each trip I've taken, though it is always difficult on some level.

Frankly, I was tired. Too many nights of staying up late and hanging around with the rest of the group in hammocks and chairs in the courtyard and then getting up early in the morning for some quiet time to myself so I could write and pray, stretched over the course of the entire trip, meant a kind of gripping exhaustion had set in. The morning that we left (Friday) I'd gotten up at 3:45 a.m., before my alarm went off. Our flight out of Managua was early, but not that early.

I couldn't sleep.

It always happens on the last day of the trip, the travel-home day. It's the realization that I've gotten used to being around friends and that I'd be going back to something not at all like that. I start trying to avoid people or go off on my own just to get back in practice of being alone.

So, I couldn't sleep.

And that is how I found myself driving maniacally last night, in the dark, trying to beat a winter storm before it hit, with far too little sleep. Guzzling energy drinks, playing loud music, and hoping that I wouldn't hit any deer, I headed home with the pedal to the floor. There were no cars on the highway, just a few trucks. It was dark. Cold. I was by myself. I was thinking about how other group members went home with family or friends, and feeling excessive amounts of annoying self-pity. When I turned off the radio and the absolute silence of the drive settled in, the complete opposite of the moment compared to what I'd just spent two weeks of living really hit hard.

This trip was the best I've been on in many ways.

This trip hurt me personally the most, too.

We didn't do construction work, and so I couldn't busy myself with a shovel and avoid my Nicaraguan friends' lives as easily. The increasing exhaustion of too little sleep left me rather easily hurt by zingers and teasing that normally I could parry if I'd had enough rest, though I tried not to let it show and instead joked back so it seemed OK. I hate to tell people to stop because then, I think, they'll just go away and not talk to me at all.

I didn't keep a blow-by-blow account of the trip in my journal this year, as I've done in past years, and instead chose to write as I normally would about what I was thinking and feeling in hopes that I'd become less like an observer recording from the shore and more like a part of the actual stream. I decided that I didn't need to remember all the details of what was done and instead wanted to know how I came to the end of the trip and what the ride was like that got me there.


What do you do when a friend makes jokes and comments that hurt exceedingly only because she doesn't know that there's any reason it would even apply to me? I wrote one morning, early, when it was still a little dark and no one was around except Roberto, who was sweeping the rocked courtyard. It's an odd thing when a friend unknowingly keeps cutting and stabbing you with words that are mere conversation to her; nothing can be done but bear it with a laugh and smile while dying inside. There's nothing to be angry about. It just is the way it is. It is an odd thing how friendship requires pouring out love for hurt. I suppose all of those knife wounds make it easier for the love to pour out and for me to not hoard it safely inside. It's painful. The whole situation it involves feels like a big, embarrassing mistake.

Later, in a different entry, I wrote: I cannot shake a sense of unease and the inability to take what is normal kidding around as well. Some of those joking jabs hit hard; I'm coming off of a tough spot this past year, perhaps. I guess it's just a good reminder to work hard and keep things in check. Remember, Julie: Build others up; do not tear down. But I feel weary and wounded. I can't decide if this is a good or bad way to be in this trip. Perhaps good -- I feel soft and sore and that should make me more useful to God and less about my own strength.

I enjoy having Michael and Colleen along. They bring a good spirit and attitude directly opposite of what is my nature. His preaching at the church has been spot-on; he really is called to be a pastor. I value Colleen's non-sarcastic way of communicating; in a group full of jokes and sarcasm, that is a kind of anchor that I hold onto tightly, I wrote early on in my journal. I really, really treasure their friendship.

I feel a severe disconnect because of all the meetings I'm in that take me away from the rest of what the group is doing. When the group sits down and talks about what they did during the day and then joke about the people who only sat in meetings, I feel really awful inside. I feel like I'm missing out, and I'm not a part of the group because I can't be part of their stories. While they laugh and joke and cry about the things they've done during the day, all I can say, when it's my turn if I were stupid enough to speak up, is that I took some notes. The meetings are productive and I know it's my job and I'm excited about what's coming from them, but I feel like I'm not part of the group and it hurts to be reminded that I wasn't there. I didn't write any more that day.

The most rewarding day! I wrote in strong cursive. Though I didn't make connections with Norma as planned, I was able to spend an hour with Elmer practicing the penny whistle. It was a rough start but he eventually caught on and I could tell he was proud of his accomplishment. He worked so hard! I love that privilege of being present while teaching someone something new, when they hit that moment of understanding. Such a privilege. That God would allow a fumbler like me to even get the opportunity to mess it up with impatience or bad attitude...amazing opportunity! A blessing!

I prayed to be real tonight, while up front of the church with the rest of the people who were praying. I'm always fake. This is my fifth year and I've again come, unwittingly, with a personal agenda that has nothing to do with the reason we are here! I get so tired of myself. I don't see how God hasn't, as well. How many thousands of dollars in travel do I have to spend, how many journals filled with all the group jokes and activities do I need to fill, before I understand that I've missed the point? So, I prayed to be real. I hope God heard. I wrote this right away, one morning, trying not to cry. I felt disappointment with myself keenly.

I think volcanoes are overrated. There are not enough band-aids in the world for such excursions. I wish I could walk without falling like a moron. One foot in front of the other. That's all you have to do, Julie, one in front of the other, I wrote the day of the volcano hike. It was a day that is going to sound and seem better after it is over. Like now.

The children of the church performed songs and a skit and showed the adults what they'd learned during the "vacation bible school" we'd done at the church, I wrote. I appreciate the work Shannon put into planning it as well as her willingness to be flexible enough to let it morph into a kind of organized chaos and feeding program. The reward was seeing those kids tonight! As I sat there, I almost cried. It was just as we'd always said in regards to our trip this year: it is about people. It is about loving people. I was grateful that God would let me even take part in the smallest way in this activity. How He has blessed me by letting me be here!

The South Beach Diet headed south, Michael told me, after watching me eat an Oreo. I have full confidence that it will head north again, when I do. Which is what I told him, I wrote.

I feel sad, I wrote. Tiredness, perhaps, has something to do with it, but I get the sense of being very much out of control and not existing as planned. I've snapped at people -- Michael and Molly come to mind -- and I regret it. I am very much existing in my weakness. It's not impressive.

I guess I'm old and short. I keep being told that. I hadn't been aware of it so much before, but now here I am feeling bad about myself in two matters that I can do nothing about, I scribbled in black pen. I can do nothing about either. But I understand it clearly: I'm old and short. It will be humorous, maybe, about two months from now when I don't care anymore (if I'm successful in putting the whole situation behind me), but right now it's not so funny. Who finds themself looking in a bathroom mirror on a missions trip with far more important things to consider, thinking and realizing that the face looking back is old and too close to the bottom of the mirror as opposed to being up higher? Stupid. This is why I avoid people; I let them remind me to live in comparison instead of being OK with the way I am.

Molly and I played a prank on Gaylon. I think payback is going to be rough, I wrote. We'd better do a couple of more pranks before it happens. (Payback wasn't too bad: Gaylon had cold water dumped on me in the shower)


I also did something new in my journal this year, ending each day's entry with a summation and prayer for what I'd written. Here are a some of them.

Summation: I feel weak and out of control. It's probably a good place to be.
Prayer: God, please continue to kill any of me that's left so I can be used as you intend for me to be used on this trip. Even if it hurts, prop me up and give me strength to be kind, build others up, and control my tongue.

Summation: Get real. In weakness and out of my comfort zone and in disappointment and hurt, find a way to be real. Not selfish. Not fake. Not with exterior motives. Direct and honest and real.
Prayer: God, help me shed the distracting baggage and finally see your plan.

Summation: Even if I don't feel like I belong, I still have a job to do here.
Prayer: Help me to let things go quietly even if they scream loudly and hurt in my heart and head.

Summation: Wanting control, and not being able to identify that want, is seriously problematic.
Prayer: Show me how me to really hear and value what others have to say, and what others have to offer, instead of just doing what I already planned on doing.

Summation: Make a difference by loving people. It's the only way.
Prayer: Please don't let me get caught up in distractions and miss the one necessary thing.

Summation: Choosing sides is easy when the information is incomplete and the issue is personal.
Prayer: God, I need the wisdom talked about in James. I pray for a change in the situation at the church.

Summation: Don't be afraid of hurt. Running from it is what will hurt in the long run.
Prayer: Help me.


In the next days, I'll be putting up more posts on the trip, including some cartoons I drew, some video clips, and photos.

Labels: nicaragua, nicaragua 2008

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      2/09/2008 01:35:00 PM      (4) comments      Links to this post    
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