As I started to leave the pastor’s home in the little mountain town outside Managua, he grabbed my hand and asked me if I would pray for his family. I was happy to pray over him, his wife, and their three brown-eyed beauties. And then as I started to leave he asked if he could take my picture. Of course! But something seems incongruous about a man who lives in a house with a dirt floor and no doors having a cell phone with a camera.

He snapped his picture. So I took out my cell phone and began to take pictures, too. I should have kept on walking.

I took pictures of each daughter, coaxed them to smile, and captured and image I’ll keep forever. And that’s when it happened. I turned to take a photo of his wife and as I did I said “Mamacita.”

Freddy, my translator jumped to my side and adamantly said “Madrecita.” (Dear Little Mother.)

What? Had a I done something wrong? Yes! But what did it mean? Freddy whisked me away saying “I’ll tell you later.”

Apparently “mamacita” means “baby, you are a hot, sexy chick.”

So, somewhere in Nicaragua there is the simply-dressed, barefooted wife of a Nicaraguan pastor who is feeling pretty good about herself, now that her true babe-aliciousness has been recognized.

Apparently, when it comes to Spanish, my reach has exceeded my grasp. Habla mas lento, por favor.

Oh my, I’m smitten. I have fallen in love.

This is Zoey. She’s a three year old bundle of Vida. There is no lack of Abundant Life here!! How appropriate that Zoey means “life.” She is perfectly named!

She squealed, ran to me, jumped in my arms and immediately said “You speak Spanish, not English!” More than once she chastised me. I never knew most of what she said because all the adults were rolling with laughter. They told me she liked me because she likes people who look like Grandpa. OK. I’ll take it! Call me whatever you want, just let me love on this precious child.

I’ve been blessed many times this week, but one of those times was certainly when this little girl jumped into my arms; maybe THIS is why I came to Nicaragua!!!

What a blessing to be with Pastor Harrison, his beautiful wife Jenny, and the precious life—Zoey—that God has given them.

There are moments of crystalline clarity in life, the kind that leave indelible impressions, like when my baby’s face popped out of Kelly’s belly. If we are lucky we get maybe a half-dozen of these moments in a lifetime. I’ve been fortunate to have several, and I think I had another one today.

The appreciation expressed by the Nicaraguan pastors has been effusive, enough so that it led me to think that the Nica’s must be naturally an appreciative people. But the mission director said “No.” The Nica’s generally are reserved and do not freely express appreciation. If that’s true, it makes my experience here all the more significant.

Several pastors have wanted to shake hands. They’ll use their few English words and I’ll use my few Spanish ones and then we are done. Occasionally, if my assigned interpreter is not available, they’ll bring someone with them who can interpret because they want to talk. At lunch today one of them came to tell me what a blessing my teaching had been and about how He knew God had a purpose in his life and God was using the teaching to help him discover it. He wanted to express his thanks which I gladly received. Mucho Gusto! I’m delighted to know what I brought to Nicaragua is helpful. That is, in fact, the purpose for which I came.

The crystalline moment today came without an interpreter. There is one pastor who has sat through eight hours of teaching so far. He’s never said a word. He’s never asked a question. The only indication I get that he is engaged is that he nods his head occasionally, and is enthusiastic when we pray. Otherwise, he is the classic Cigar Store Indian.

When our session concluded this afternoon my interpreter had stepped to the restroom and I was left alone, unable to communicate since my Spanish consists of just enough words and phrases to get me into trouble. This Cigar Store Indian pastor who speaks not a word of English, came up to me and grabbed my hand, then he stepped closer, and he laid his head on my chest, and he just stood there cradled in my arms like a child.

In that crystalline moment, no Spanish or English was needed. I knew what he meant, and I knew why I was in Nicaragua.

Another barrio. Another rutted, trash-strewn alley. Lots of sets of brown eyes peering at the gringo, and we pulled up to the rented house that is headquarters for a fledgling ministry to addicts that was birthed by the vision of a gang member, Marvin, who will gladly show you his belly where he was split from stem to stern by the knife of a rival gangster. It was in the hospital where an old man faithfully visited Marvin every day to tell him about Jesus that this gangster put down his knife, picked up the Sword of the Spirit—his Bible, caught fire for Jesus, and today leads derelicts back from the brink of death to a vibrant new life.

Marvin may be my favorite Nica. He’s rough. He doesn’t come shined up. But he knows Jesus changed his life and is changing the lives of others and he’s sure of it. Changed people, the truly born-again and saved from death are like that. Don’t confuse them with any high-falutin theological facts.

At the addiction ministry Marvin heads their only therapy is Jesus Christ. They don’t have 12 steps. They don’t sit in circles and talk about their problems. They pray. Then Marvin tells them Jesus will heal them and help them, and then they pray some more. It’s not that Marvin is against 12 steps. They just don’t have them. They don’t know much about psychology. They’ve only got One Step: Jesus Saves.  And as it turns out, that is all they need.

Marvin’s “Jesus Therapy” works. These men went around the room and each told their story. Invariably it was of chemical brokenness. They’d lost their families. One man told of how his children were too afraid of him to approach him and how it broke his heart. But then he lifted his hands toward Heaven, told me that Jesus had sobered him, restored him to his family, and that now his children would receive him. He hadn’t had a drink in eight months.

Marvin then stepped to a small marker board on the wall that listed out their daily regimen of prayer, Bible Study, praise, and reflection, and he drew a map of Nicaragua. He explained to me that there was a small struggling church in the Honduran border 300 km away and that next week he was taking two of the men to that town to go door to door telling the story of how Jesus had helped them, preaching every night in the community, and revitalizing the Christian witness in that town.

I wept. It would be hard to calculate how many millions of dollars worth of spiritual monuments exist in my town alone—-ostensibly occupied by evangelicals. There are enough ministers with advanced degrees to run several seminaries. We have conferences and seminars. We have libraries, books & radio stations. So much in the way of resources, and so little gets done; so few get saved.

Marvin? He’s got “Jesus Therapy.”

I want to be more like Marvin.

At the end of my time with the reclaimed addicts today they said they’d pray for me and asked what I needed from God. Through tears I told these young Spanish-speaking former punks and drunks exactly what I needed God to do in my life as I thought “I’d rather have these four guys praying for me than all the theologians in America!”

If I weren’t going to get to spend eight more hours teaching at Project Hope, and if I weren’t going to get to preach in one of Managua’s great churches tomorrow night, it would still have been worth coming just to sit with Marvin’s guys and hear about “Jesus Therapy.”

As I talked with a group yesterday the topic of our ages arose. When that happens, I typically like to make people guess because I know the gray hair will usually confuse them into thinking I’m older than I am, and its fun and funny to hear their responses and then to see their faces when I tell them my age.

When I asked this group yesterday, the responses varied—all well North of my real age. The doctor in the crowd called me “60.” One young man, age 22, thought I was “70.”

They were all amazed to discover that I first saw the light of day in……1963.

Now on  to what is increasingly becoming a favorite Bible passage of mine “Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life.” (Proverbs 16:31) SEE! I told you I was living right. And I’ve got the hair to prove it.