question 3: living with a relatively poor family is one of the most significant parts of your trip. how is this experience of family shaping your understanding of what a Christian family is called to be? how does it feel to be a guest in your family's home? how does it make you feel about your own family? how is the experience of simple living with a family comfortable and uncomfortable? how does your experience of being a guest influence your own thoughts about the kind of hospitality you want to provide for others?

response:

so my family is middle class Nicaraguan which is quite different
from middle class US but also a world away from the rural family i
lived with last summer. i'm struck by how much they do have, three
tvs with cable, nintendo, cell phones...it seems like their aspiring
to the same level of consumerism and material possessions that we
have in the US and so the living simply part if i honestly look at it isn't
really present with this family. maybe my perspective is too far gone
i don't know but i feel just as privileged here.

it's a hard thing. the question states 'living with a
relatively poor family' and that's precisely the point i was trying
to make, poverty is relative and when i went to ben linder house last
week i heard a woman speak about the photography workshop she'd
done with kids from la trueca but coming from a childhood of refugee
camps herself she made this same point-poverty is relative, just as is
wealth. the thing that we need to get through our heads in the states
is that our way of life, our pace of consumerism is abnormal, the rest
of the world doesn't live like that, can't live like that because it
is simply not sustainable, and on closer look one might argue unjust
to live such a lifestyle. the phrase that keeps rolling through my
mind is 'live simply so that others can simply live'.
so i'm trying to throw in some positives about the family element
here in nicaragua and i'm afraid i'm coming off wrong here, my family
is the best...my brother and sister and two little brothers are lots
of fun and keep my occupied every minute that i'm home. my mom is
an amazing cook and they are always feeding me new and delicious
things, my older sister i have yet to go out dancing with but she is fun
as well. the strange thing is they are Jehovah’s witnesses and as such
hold some peculiar views but at the same time i feel like they aren't
that hardcore, maybe my father is. they sit down and have
conversations with me but they are definitely one sided and more than
just as far as my dad is the one who does all the talking, sometimes
someone can be so convinced they hold the truth and all of the truth
that dialogue becomes impossible. but i just sit and listen and who
knows by the end of this experience perhaps i'll be converted into
thinking it's the end of time and some other bizarre things in my
english version of their Jehovah’s witness magazine.
i perhaps feel a stronger familial connection with the staff at
AKF...even if they secretly think i'm serious and no fun because i
don't speak much or fill the room with my presence, i feel like they
were the first and greatest welcome that we could have ever hoped for.
Luis still blows my mind with how famous he should be, how great of a
man he is, all he's accomplished, his sense of humor. plus you Elena,
it really feels like from day one we walked into a family and in these
short short four weeks i feel so comfortable at the center that it is
like a second home. so what has it taught me about God, what he is
like? well if you think about it God is relational in nature if you
buy the trinity thing...father son and holy spirit share the very
essence of God-love. i've also been reinforced in my thinking that no
matter what label you wear-christian, buddhist, jew-the thing that
truly speaks is our works and how we treat one another. in that sense
i don't need to be told that AKF has anything to do with Christianity
to see that the work they do is good, that the staff has a piece of
God's glory in the way they care for us, the slow and clumsy gringos
with outstretched arms and open hearts. this is quickly dissolving to
cliché and sappy language but that's what families are all about
right? so if someone asked me what i liked best about Nicaragua,
while i might be tempted to say the trees, on deeper thought i'd have
to say the feeling i have on the way back from my social service site
and arriving to a place where i feel at home, with a family. and i
think that's what God wanted for everyone-to experience that feeling
of family and of love and it's precisely where things can go horribly
wrong, perhaps it's the greatest sadness to see children without
that...it makes me think of my family (biological that is) and be even
one hundred times more grateful for them and the childhood i
enjoyed-full of love and with two parents that still love one another
so much. i didn't do anything to deserve that but i can't help but
feel grateful and to feel so incredibly sad for the kids that didn't
have that growing up. how can it not affect your image of God, your
sense of who you are and what you're doing on this earth, your sense
of value and worth? el fin.