Wendy Willard

We’ve been back in the US for a little over two weeks, so it’s feels time to give one final post about our family mission trip to Nicaragua. With a lot of folks asking me about our trip, I’ve had some time to consider the most important statements to make. Many of those same people have commented about their own family’s need to complete a trip like ours. When I hear that, I say what has become the new mantra of family mission trips like ours: Can you hug a child with lice?

The culture in the US is so antibacterial that we have unknowingly set ourselves up for failure in certain mission situations. You might think that sounds a bit harsh, but keep reading. For our family mission trip, we traveled to Campo Alegria in southern Nicaragua. We then bussed about thirty kids from the Managua City dump to Campo Alegria, where they were given three days of summer camp fun. Many of the kids had lice. One boy had the worst case of scabies any of us had ever seen (he was subsequently sent home to be treated). Because of this, our team members were presented with a concept that seems totally foreign to most Americans. Can you love a stranger, even if that puts you at risk of contracting something like scabies or lice?

Jesus hung out with people who were considered to be highly contagious. Mark 14:3 places Jesus “reclining” the home of Simon the leper. Aren’t the purpose of mission trips to show the love of Christ to others? Certainly lice and scabies are nothing like leprosy, but they are nevertheless contagious. At home, we do whatever is necessary to avoid contracting those annoying bugs. So shouldn’t we do the same while traveling to another country with our family?

This has been a tough one to digest. One afternoon at Campo, I sat on the floor helping a group of boys complete a foam world map. One 7-year-old sat particularly close to me, so he could be the first to get the puzzle pieces out of my hand. He was completely engulfed in the map puzzle, excited to see how it would all come together. At one point he reached his arm around my neck, and I caught a glimpse of something out of the ordinary along the back of his short, jet-black hair. My initial reaction was to pull away, but I had to intentionally stop myself. Instead I smiled at the boy and continued helping with the puzzle (all the while wondering in my head how close I had gotten to his hair ).

This situation (coupled with similar situations from others on our team) left me seriously considering my commitment to the mission. In the grand scheme of things, catching lice or scabies (both of which are quite easily treated in the US, albeit annoying to deal with) is so very minor when compared with what many missionaries deal with on a regular basis. But for some of our team, these were big issues. I think it was a huge growth experience. We learned to set aside our fear of “catching something” and really love those children. After all, what kind of love would we be showing them if we were too afraid to sit next to them, to share a meal with them, or to hug them?

Now that we’re back in the US, I hope I continue to live this lesson. There are tons of folks around us – in our neighborhoods, schools, and offices – who might be “unclean” but still need the love of Christ. My prayer is that we are able to continue the loving spirit of missions we learned in Nicaragua, here at home, regardless of what we might “catch”