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A Different Kind of Sister

Twice a week we hang
out with some local girls.  We help with homework,
play games, and jump rope.  The home is a
place where girls ages 6 to 15 live because their families aren’t fit to take
care of them. They are not orphans but many come from physically abusive or
drug addicted parents. We mainly hang out with four little girls that are 7 and
8. Oh and I forgot to mention, the home is run by nuns.

Last Tuesday we were
playing with the little girls when a nun asked Kayla to help her with
something. She was traveling to Florida to give a presentation to raise money
for the home and wanted help with her English. This nun was 5’1, probably mid
50’s and clearly did not speak English. (When she first called Kayla over I
thought she was going to yell at her for her clothes or the way we were
playing.) However, the nun just needed some help, so Kayla spent two hours
going over her presentation and helping her with her pronunciation. She then
asked Kayla and I to return the following night to go over the speech again. We
did, and it was a comical sight – two teenage gringas wearing t-shirts and
flip-flops correcting a nun. Wow. My favorite part however, was after we
finished helping her, she asked us for our phone number so that we could
continue giving her English lessons after she gets back. She pulled not one but
two cell phones out of her “nun suit” pocket and had us enter our
number, I can honestly say that I never imagined I would be giving my phone
number to a middle aged nun in Nicaragua. Sometimes, I look around and have to
ask myself, “Is this real life?”

 Learning
opportunities and unique ministries present themselves in all shapes and sizes.
Some are more familiar than others, but I have learned to embrace all these new
and different experiences with a joyful heart.

 

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