Hopefully it doesn't come as a shock or disappointment to any of you that I am still alive. It's been a while, but my hiatus wasn't without good reason. I've been traveling almost nonstop for the last three weeks and I look forward to unpacking the lessons learned with you over the next few posts. Buckle up.
First, a little overview:
Feb 27 - Mar 5: Grandparents
My grandma and grandpa Rolloff came all the way from Minnesota to San José to spend a week with me. We had a blast. We got to spend time in both San José and around Manuel Antonio on the West coast. Between them, we saw ancient pottery, fish, birds, monkeys, and friends at Bible studies, museums, mangroves, beaches, a coffee plantation, and plenty of other really cool places. It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun interpreting for them but also getting to know them in a different way than ever before. I'm so thankful they came - I know it was a very different travel experience than what they're used to, but I think we all managed to have a good time. I'll unpack some of this later, but I think my big takeaway just getting to know them outside the context of big family holidays or trips.
Mar 6 - Mar 16: Valpo Trip
For the second and longest leg of my three-week road trip, I interpreted for a group of 23 nursing, pre-med, and pre-dental students from Valparaiso University, my alma mater. It was some of the most rewarding and refreshing work I have ever done. I knew a few of them before they came, but by the end of the trip I think I had formed or deepened a friendship with nearly all of them. We worked (and occasionally played) very hard and had a blast doing it. This picture was taken on what was one of our only days off when we all went ziplining. I think the big takeaway from this trip came from my friend Katie Dayman. Her comments during our final debrief time at the last hotel made me realize that as a result of 23 students' decisions to give up laying on a beach or spending time with their family or doing whatever else college kids do on spring break (I wouldn't really know - I was always on tour), the lives of people they had never met before this month have been changed in real and lasting ways. I personally experienced a case where a patient had been living with a chronic but entirely treatable condition for over a year due to no reason other than her extreme poverty. I've seen poverty before, even worked within it as an educator and constructor, but this was somehow different. We were helping people directly, personally. We listened, asked, looked, touched. Plenty more to unpack, but it was truly a mountaintop experience - the fact that I was doing it as a job just seems absurd looking back.
Mar 17 - Mar 20: Nicaraguan Lutherans
After the students left on Friday morning (or was it Saturday?), a few of us from my church in Costa Rica stayed in Managua, caught a 5:00 A.M. bus to a tiny little village close to the Honduran border, then caught an hourlong or so covered pickup ride to a church quite literally in the middle of nowhere for a congress or conference between a bunch of Nicaraguan congregations and our own. It was a time for the pastors to catch each other up on developments around the country, but also to clarify and unify their message around a few specific theological topics. It was very interesting to me, but sadly I don't have any good pictures. My camera died about halfway through the Valpo trip. I was able to participate a bit, but I mostly just played the fly on the wall and tried to learn as much as possible about these people. It's a very small world sometimes, especially as a Lutheran. On the way back to Costa Rica, Heidi and I stopped for about a day and a half in Managua and Granada where I met a few very special little boys in a market. I'll leave that as your teaser for this post.
Throughout it all, I discovered it manifesting itself in new and different ways. I saw it happen between my grandparents in a completely different light. I saw complete strangers caring deeply and passionately for each other, if only for a moment or two. I saw the ecstatic reunion of "annual" friendships and felt the pure joy of cultivating my own - whether with people I'd known for six months or six minutes. It was a beautiful experience, and one that I know I will take with me my whole life because that's exactly what it was and is - life. Lived to the fullest. Some would call it eudaimonia. I call it love.
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