Having spent around a year in Nicaragua and Costa Rica we have now sadly arrived to the point when its time to say goodbye to all brothers, sisters & friends in this part of the world.
Its time to go back to Europe and join the Spanish speaking congregation and help out there instead ;)
But it goes without saying that our experiences in this part of the world has formed + trained our thinking in many ways.... and just to mention a few.
1
Many material things we take for granted in Europe are not "the basics" even though that is what we might think... on the contrary its pure luxury.
And it does not help when the commercial systems is pushing our thinking in this direction as well.
2
The brotherhood is stronger here since people need to rely much more on each others while coping with daily struggles.
I suspect that our social welfare system in Europe is to blame. Back in Europe our welfare system "cuts out" the need for real people and we become detached since we think that "others" (or the system) will look after our fellow humans instead of us.
And OK, it might be the case that our system does that fairly successfully.... but only up to a point though.
The problem is we lost the human aspect of looking after others in the process!
It has just become a numbers game that does not provide for all facets in our daily lives ... so vulnerable people end up being lonely, isolated and depressed in the process.
But I'm NOT saying that the support system here is better all the time though... but people are somehow treated more as people and not as numbers and one gets the feeling they are better cared for (as long as they have a family, which is the network).
The good thing with Jehovah's Witnesses is that our congregations are our families so our "support network" is huge and no one will ever be left fending for themselves.
Finally. ..
We hope that all the photos we posted over the last year in our 2x blogs helped you to understand a bit what we faced when living in this part of the world + enabled you to get a taste and all the positive things we experienced as well.
Since we are flying out to Europe tomorrow this is probably our last update on our blogs; but we will not close them down though.
So we will keep our blogs running for....
1. Others who want to go and preach in these places in the future ... and who want to know a bit more what to expect here. We are not the first couple to do this type of work; but not the last ones either.
2. All friends who want to look back now and again.
3. Keeping it as a sweet memory for me & wife and for us to share with others with a similar mindset.
Once again... thanks to all who followed us on this trip :)
