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| The Nicavangelists performing in Chicago |
I had stayed up ALL
NIGHT LONG. Seven of our troupe had already left, in two groups, utilising car,
taxi cab, train, bus and plane to get back to Managua. I was left with the ones
I trusted supremely, and the others I had no faith in whatsoever.
Lorenzy gently asked,
“Dad, it’s 2am now. May I please sleep for a while?” I stared hard at the
floor, wondering how they managed to get the wooden panels to shine the way
they did. “Sleep? SLEEP?!!! Heck no, we’ve got to get ALL of our belongings
into one place, pack everything to fit into the few suitcases we have left, and
clean this house from TOP TO BOTTOM!!! No you may not sleep. Not now, NOT
EVER!!!” Lorenzy’s exhausted 13 year old frame meandered away.
Elizabeth is our
“packer.” Without question, she is amazing. This woman can get an elephant into
a handbag, and a house into a suitcase. She rolls, pouts, pushes and screams!
It’s almost the same as her giving birth. And with both scenarios I do the same
thing, drink coffee and say “yes dear…”
American punctuality I
cannot fathom. At 3:59am, I do not lie, in waltzed valiant Pastor Dominick of
the Center Moriches (Long Island) Assembly of God, toting gloves, hat, and a
grin from ear-to-ear. His early morning cheer offended me. I skulled a cup of
hot coffee a little too fast and ran around inflicting torture on everyone else
as I transformed our dormant house into the semblance of a brightly lit
Christmas Tree. If I must suffer, than SO MUST YOU!
We dawdled to the van
and plonked our bums on the clean, fabric seats. Thankfully, we’d packed the
van the night before, and didn’t need to coordinate anything. I checked that we
had our passports and paperwork for the 50th time and then proceeded
to make RIDICULOUS attempts at 4:05am small talk.
Pastor Dominick
understood my pain. He kept the conversation light.
The Long Island
Airport (Macarthur) was barely alive. I was thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t
had us fly out of LaGuardia or JFK. My good friend Deidra, from the Evangel
Church in Long Island City had helped me out with purchasing our homeward bound
flights. The woman was a brainiac with all things aviation and internet, helping
me to save hundreds of dollars and my sanity.
We wheeled our 3
trollies of bags into the terminal, and I don’t mean the conventional passenger
trollies, I mean the heavy duty, 3 metre long types. There were no other
passengers waiting at the US Airways check-in area (America’s equivalent to Air
India – soon to be merged with American Airlines, and hence to become America’s
very own equivalent of Air China). We began to shift and shuffle suitcases,
backpacks, pillows and blankets. I checked in for our flights via the kiosk
(American efficiency, I LOVE IT!!!).
The first bleary eyed
worker came out of the back office and I knew my work was in front of me.
Airport workers will bend rules, but you have to get them onside first. Men are
generally more willing to turn blind eyes, but there were none available.
I struck up a conversation,
smiling broadly (not authentic, and I could feel the cracks in my performance
from the outset) and bunging on my most Aussie accent. “G’day love!” I said as
if I knew her. It worked… Phew! From that moment on it was “Australia” this and
“Australia” that from her. I stopped smiling after but a few moments, and
almost interrupted her to say “look, could you just hurry up!” However, I
restrained myself. We hugged and kissed like long lost cousins, and I retreated
to the wiry metal seating close to the revolving entrance door.
“Right” I said. “The
time is now!... Jonny, I am entrusting you with my very own often forgotten son.
Please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE take care of him, just as if he was YOUR
very own offspring… and if you lose him, I will hunt you down and GUT YOU LIKE
A PIG!!!” (One of my favourite lines from “The Grinch!” I use it whenever I am
nervously serious, and need a little light relief) More hugs and more kisses.
The boys toodled off towards the security zone and the departures area.
I slowly bent my knees,
not wanting to frighten them with a fast sitting motion, and reveled in the
sensation of my botty being cut into a hundred pieces. Lorenzy asked a further
1,000 unnecessary questions and I answered them all, at times referring her
back to answers I’d previously given. We
stared at each other without expression, just comfortable not to be busy or in
a hurry.
Just as the very last
muscle in my tired body began to relax, my long lost cousin from check-in
appeared before me. I looked up. “WHAT?” I wanted to ask. I again, restrained
myself. “Are you guys okay?” Now honestly, this is not a question to be asking
a missionary travelling solo with 12 kids in his charge. I wanted to break down
and cry, pouring my heart out to this kind and generous soul, but her facial
expression didn’t emanate social worker type of love at this point, instead it
exuded “there is a massive problem” kind of love.
“Your flight is
scheduled to depart in 25 minutes! You have to get all the way up to the other
end of the airport for your security check, and then all the way back down this
end to board your flight!” I’d wanted coffee!
Up I jumped, everyone
else (bar Lorenzy) unaware of the potential catastrophe we were about to face.
I barked orders, having everyone put their 2 backpacks and pillow stuffed with
blanket and many other items, onto one of the airport’s industrial sized
trollies. (Side note: You can get away with murder when travelling with
children – even as an elderly person, I’m going to hire my grandkids so that I
can take extra stuff on planes: “Oh, that’s his teddy bear! He likes it… Bah, that’s
his i-pad! It helps to relax him… Grrrr, that’s his pair of dumbbells! He needs
them…), I fanged it down the departures hall, near-missing many a
Long-Island-Business-Type-Person (I kept checking behind for the kids who
initially strolled, then jogged, then pelted it too…).
By the time we arrived
through screening, we were near naked (on account of belts, buckles, coins,
shoes, socks, pens and paperclips being extracted from our persons) and
exasperated. We flew past Sezni and Jonny, who had blank expressions on their
faces.
We were the last to
board the flight, and they had been just about to close it prior to our
arrival. I pulled out a sock, a ladies feminine hygiene product, a toothbrush
and an array of papers before retrieving our boarding passes. We skipped out
onto the tarmac, once again happy to be alive, hearts thumping wildly, only to
be turned around to retrieve our passports back at the departure gate, which
we’d stupidly left with the airport worker.
As I approached the
plane the flight attendant called out “THAT BAG WON’T FIT IN THE PLANE!” I
turned my head sideways, pretending not to hear. I looked into the distance and
saw an amazing picture – the sun was rising…
The annoying woman continued
to call, filling my ears with more “no’s.” She should have realised that I was
the wrong person to tackle on a Tuesday morning out of Long Island Airport.
“G’DAY!!!” I yelled as I came to within a metre of her, sending her swiftly
backwards towards the coffee pot, bee-hive becoming entangled in the handle.
“PLEASURE TO SEE YOU!” I exclaimed, as I marched straight past her.
I didn’t get far, she
hurried behind me. “Sir, sir, that bag won’t fit on the plane!” I turned around
sharply. “Yes it will, it’s only blankets”, my hand harshly squishing the
oversized object downwards, though the bag rebelliously not moving an inch
making me out to look like a liar and a fool! Many of my fellow passengers’
eyes began to roll…
I arrived at my seat
and pulled out a backpack from within my “backpack.” I handed it to her. She
raised question mark arms with matching face and asked “where?” I opened the
overhead bin in front of me, which was completely empty, stuffed the back pack
and other bag in it, and then sat down, ripping the magazine out from the seat
pocket in front of me, and pretending to read an article on some new emerging pharmaceutical
drug. “Hmpf” and she was gone…
Our flights were dreamy.
We made it to Fort Lauderdale, via DC, in record time. We took a taxi to Miami
International Airport and made it to Taca. What a disaster! This airline is
beautiful, inflight, but a bit chaotic on the ground.
I looked for the end
of the line, however confusion reigned. I went to the check-out area and looked
back across the empty queues. The congestion started at the back of the line,
where bags were being weighed for extra charges, before people were permitted
to queue(?).
I approached one of
the “bag weighers” and asked him if it might be possible to move the scales
halfway towards the check-in counter, so that people could queue within the
ropes, rather than obstruct all the increasingly cranky Lufthansa passengers,
who were also trying to use the terminal building to access their flights.
The lad looked at me
as if I was from Mars. I asked for the manager, who suddenly appeared beside
me. I again explained my brilliant idea, and she said “thank you for your
ideas, but we have to abide by specific regulations (in queue procedure???).” I
asked to speak to the airport manager. She explained that she was the airport
manager. Our exchange became
increasingly heated, as I begged her to have an idea that might assist her in
assisting others.
I marched away highly
annoyed, and returned to my group, HOPING for some support. Not to be… As I
approached them, Sezni, my gallant son, started pointing his thumb in hitchhiker
fashion, calling out loudly, embarrassingly and with authority “AH AH AAAAAH!
BACK OF THE LINE FOR YOU!!!” Thanks for the support, Sezanator!
We arrived back in
Nicaragua to huge fanfare. Thank you Elizabeth for the fuss! I was thrilled to
be home and delighted to have our family reunited. We crammed, all 50 of us
(she’d brought half of our barrio with her), into our currently running ute.
As we drove along
Managua’s busy, people saturated streets, two things struck me about Nicaragua.
Firstly, people love,
love, love people. They’re out and about, partly because of necessity and
partly because they need to be with others. They’re human. One problem in the
west is that we work our guts out to get the biggest house possible, and then
retreat to them, henceforth creating a copious supply of loneliness in our
societies.
Secondly, people are
desperate. In the US, for the most part, I had NOT experienced hunger. Any time
I felt a need, I filled it. Driving home I began to feel hunger, in Nicaragua hunger
is my companion.
As we drove home Lizzie
relayed the sad events of the preceding evening. Alex, a 17 year old boy and a regular
at our center, had become entangled in a brawl on the street. A friend of his,
unable to really help, ran to Alex’s mother and communicated exactly what was
transpiring. Alex’s mother came to the aid of her son. She shot the offender
and he is now permanently paralyzed. Both Alex and his mother have been sent to
prison.
Last night, I went with
Aben and Harrison to buy snacks. As we entered the petrol station it became
apparent that the attendants were mopping up blood. “What’s going on?” asked
Aben. “We’ve just had a machete attack.”
I had been so critical
of much I’d seen and heard in the US. I had begun to idolize my beautiful
Nicaragua. However, I am at the place of completely accepting that “None is
righteous, no, not one…” (Romans 3)
So where to from here?
Nothing has changed and so because we know God, understand the call on our
lives, we continue… we carry on… “Therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” But wait, here’s the promise:
And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age!!!
(Matthew
28)
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